When Family Plans Fail: Understanding the Social Consequences of Childlessness on Married Couples

The study examined the social impact of childlessness on married couples in the society. One objective and one research question alongside one hypothesis were raised for the study. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. A population of 160,301women in 65communities in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State was used. A sample of 100womenfrom 5 communities was used and this was done via multi-stage sampling technique of Random sampling technique and Proportionate sampling technique. The questionnaire titled “Socio-cultural Impact of Childlessness on Married Couples Questionnaire (SICMCQ)” was used as instrument to collect relevant data. The instrument was validated by some experts and its reliability was tested for to be 0.75. The data collected, were analyzed using frequency, mean and percentage for the research questions and Chi-square was used to test for the hypotheses. The findings from the study showed that the mean responses of the women on the social impact of childlessness on married couples in the society. From the analysis done, all the items with respective mean scores of 3.26, 3.04, 3.17 and 3.26 were accepted because their mean scores are above the criterion-mean score of 2.5. Based on the grand mean score obtained at 3.18, it can therefore be deduced that childlessness brings about a high level of negative social impacts on married couples in diverse ways.