Paper long abstract:

Throughout history, and in different cultural contexts, the role of childless people in elder and child care in the framework of kinship has been overshadowed within the relationships and duties among relatives. This paper considers how people without children have an active role in issues related to intergenerational solidarity, shared care, and filial piety, despite the often undervalued position of childless people among their family network. And the point is not only about their relationships, but also their own situation when they become elderly childless people.

We start from a cross-cultural approach through History that considers the entire set of relationships, feelings, and representations, which develop from procreation and child-rearing processes and are expressed in the course of life, as an outstanding aspect of kinship. In this sense, rather than childlessness, the question is 'being someone's child' (and therefore member of a group of relatives).