Women Do Not Need to Have Children in Order to Be Fulfilled

Do Women Need to Have Children in Order to Be Fulfilled? A System Justification Account of the Motherhood Norm. Alexandra Suppes. Social Psychological and Personality Science, April 9, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620909728

Abstract: There is a widely held folk belief that a woman needs to have children in order to live a fulfilled life. This article tests whether or not endorsing this folk belief—or the motherhood norm—has an impact on subjective well-being. With data from 49 countries, Study 1 shows that those who endorsed the motherhood norm experienced greater subjective well-being than those who did not, an effect that was especially true in countries with high gender inequality. Study 2 establishes that this norm exaggerates the impact of motherhood on subjective well-being. After accounting for the situation of women’s lives, motherhood status did not explain differences in self-reported life satisfaction, and mothers reported only slightly greater happiness than women who were not mothers. These findings support a series of preregistered hypotheses designed to test the palliative function of endorsing system-justifying norms, though these data may be consistent with other theories.

Keywords: system justification, subjective well-being, gender, motherhood