New research is asking whether Australian women consider the world a safe and promising place for children and the next generation to flourish.
The national study is seeking input from mothers and potential mothers about how the impacts of climate change, including Australia’s recent bushfires and major floods, is shaping their feelings and potential decisions about child-bearing and motherhood.
The 2022 pilot study aims to reflect upon reproductive and child-rearing sentiments, decisions and practices in the “age of climate change,” says Flinders University researcher and ‘Maternal Futures’ chief investigator Associate Professor Kris Natalier.
“We are living through an era in which climate-fuelled crises increasingly demand our attention,” Associate Professor Natalier says.
“For women who foresee a future in which climate change accelerates and disasters worsen, it has become increasingly problematic to bring new life into this troubled horizon of crises becoming even more frequent and elongated.”
