ABC News interviews Blackstone about child-free women

ABC News interviewed Amy Blackstone, a professor of sociology at the University of Maine, for its story “Are child-free, single women really happier? An author’s claim sparks debate.” The story was in response to Paul Dolan’s book “Happy Ever After,” in which the London School of Economics professor of behavioral science asserted women without kids or a partner are the happiest people. Dolan later said that the “world is a complicated place and we like institutions and order and marriage gives us that order. If single women may not be as miserable as we think them to be, that calls into question the orders and we don’t like that being challenged.” Blackstone told ABC News that when she first sought data on child-free women, she found very little. “We need to pick this question up because we still don’t understand the lived experiences of women without children,” she said in the article. In her research, Blackstone distinguishes between women who choose to be child-free and women who want to have children but cannot. She has found that the stereotype that women who are child-free are selfish and self-involved is not true. “They opt to use their time being very involved in their communities and are more likely to organize an event rather than simply attend an event, for example.”