Motherhood as a “risky choice”: How Japanese women describe their pathways to childlessness

This paper uses a qualitative, interpretive approach to examine how childless women in a low fertility, high gender inequality context understand their non-motherhood. It focuses specifically on women aged 35–50 without children in Japan, a country with one of the world's highest rates of childlessness. Findings from in-depth interview data reveal that it was uncommon for women to frame their childlessness as either fully a result of choice or fully a result of circumstances over which they had little agency. Rather, many viewed motherhood as a risky choice shaped by concerns about stability, identity, and biological reproduction. Each of these concerns was also gendered, infused by lingering norms that position childcare, housework, and fertility as mainly women's responsibilities. Overall, this paper highlights the multifaceted tensions that amplify hesitation about motherhood in a highly gender-unequal setting and, further, illustrates how childlessness can take on new meaning as an alternatively secure status for women without children approaching mid-adulthood.