This website documents the progress of a number of studies currently being undertaken by Associate Professor Damien Riggs and Dr Clare Bartholomaeus of Flinders University. The studies are funded by the Australian Research Council as part of a Future Fellowship, with the larger project focused on family diversity. More information about the history of the larger project is available at our sister site.
The first study that we are running is titled Feeling, wanting, having: The meaning of children to Australian heterosexual couples. Full information about the scope of this study is available here. We are interested in understanding how heterosexual couples make decisions about having a first child, and how the experience of having a child potentially differs from, or aligns with, the expectations that people have when it comes to planning for a first child.
Other planned studies include a survey of men’s experiences of pregnancy loss, a study focusing on the experiences of families where a child identifies as transgender, a multi-generational study of parenting experiences, a national survey about attitudes towards family diversity, and a study focusing on the experiences of single women having children. More information will be posted on this website as it becomes available.
We will also be blogging about our research as it progresses, focusing on all of the different aspects of the work that we do with Australian families.