Sunday May 19, 2013

Reporter: Rahni Sadler

Producer: Nick Farrow

Girls grow up, leave home, meet that special someone and, soon enough, start a family. That's the old-school view: that women who can have children will want to have babies of their own.

But that view is changing as the notion of what makes up an Australian family undergoes its biggest upheaval in history. By the end of the decade, it's estimated that one in five Australian women over the age of 45 will be child-free. While infertility and other factors come into play for some of these women, a large number of them are proudly child-free by choice: a generation of smart, successful women vowing never to become mothers.

Sunday Night reporter Rahni Sadler speaks to several such women, including 30-year-old Alana Schetzer who has coined the nickname 'the Barren-esses' to describe she and her fellow child-free friends. Schetzer is happy to spend time with her young niece and nephew, but that's where the maternal urge ends.

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