Social Support, Psychological Wellbeing and Life Satisfaction Among Childless Women in Accra, Ghana

ABSTRACT

Globally, the childless population is growing fast with 37% of women in their peak reproductive years (30-34) remaining childless. Both voluntary and involuntary childlessness can have great psychological consequences for couples who are in their childbearing years. Surprisingly, there is relatively little documentation about the lives of childless women especially in the developing world. Childless people have been conspicuously ignored in social sciences, even in very pertinent fields such as counselling, adult development, aging and the family. This thesis examined the relationship between psychological wellbeing, social support and life satisfaction among childless women. The thesis adopts the Need Theory and the Scarcity versus Extension Theories of Parenthood as frameworks to study contextual variables and measured both negative and positive effects of psychological wellbeing. The thesis employed cross-sectional, quantitative interviews that involved 253 childless women aged 20-55 years in Accra, Ghana.

The collected data was analysed using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Regression. The results indicate that there was generally low levels of social support, low life satisfaction and poor psychological wellbeing reported by the childless women. Significant positive relationship was found between social support and life satisfaction among childless women. There was also a significant positive relationship between psychological wellbeing and life satisfaction among the participants. Age differences has a significant effect on life satisfaction of childless women and marital status has a significant effect on life satisfaction of childless women. Finally, level of education has a significant effect on life satisfaction of childless women.