Childlessness in the workplace: The blind spot we don’t talk about enough

Many professionals are navigating childlessness in silence. It is one of the most overlooked DEI issues in the workplace and affects more colleagues than many realise, yet the PR industry, along with many others, still lacks the awareness, language and confidence to properly engage with it. The result is silence, assumptions and people carrying very real pain beneath the surface.

The routes into childlessness are wide-ranging: miscarriage, infertility, illness, medical complications, failed IVF, loss of partners, coercion, financial barriers, social infertility, stillbirth and many other combinations of these. Grief doesn’t run on a schedule. It resurfaces when it wants to, often triggered by small moments at work that were never intended to hurt but could easily have been avoided.

Childlessness exists in every organisation, team and meeting. Current figures show that around 19% of women and around 25% of men reach mid-adulthood without children*. These figures cover all childlessness and show that it is far more common than many people realise.

Childless or childfree: know the difference

Childless and childfree are two realities that are often muddled together. As someone who has navigated my own complex path through childlessness, I’ve seen how easily people mislabel others without understanding their circumstances.

Childless describes people who wanted children but didn’t, or couldn’t, have them.
Childfree describes people who didn’t want children and have chosen not to become parents. Some people identify with both at different points in their lives.

All definitions are valid. All deserve understanding. And none should be assigned by anyone except the person living it. Too often, people without children are placed into one category based on assumption or stereotype. This strips away agency and flattens very different experiences. If we don’t understand the distinction, we overlook the needs of our own teams, colleagues and clients.

There are many microaggressions that most people don’t hear themselves saying. These are everyday comments can land with surprising force:

• “You never know… it could still happen.”
• “You’ve got all that disposable income.”
• “You don’t know stress.”
• “That’s why you look so young… no kids.”
• “You can’t understand love until you’re a parent.”
• “As a mum… / As a dad…”
• “Why don’t you adopt?”
• “You can have one of mine.”

They may be casual or well meant, but they minimise and erase. And then there is that devastating modern workplace habit: unsolicited baby content.

Scan photos in WhatsApp groups, pregnancy announcements posted without warning, multiple baby pictures in shared channels, and ‘new arrivals’ displays in office kitchens can all have a significant emotional impact on colleagues who may be quietly navigating grief.

Parents should celebrate fully and joyfully. Many colleagues love celebrating with them. But a simple check-in such as, ‘Is it alright if I share something baby-related in here?’ is respectful, takes seconds and allows people to opt out if they need to. Small considerations like this create psychological safety for those who may be living with painful realities behind the scenes.

Empathy is at the heart of PR, yet this remains a blind spot. We spend our professional lives understanding audiences, human behaviour and emotional nuance. Internally, though, our industry often defaults to a narrow narrative. Parenthood is the assumed norm, particularly for women, and anything else is treated as an outlier.

This encourages subtle but powerful inequalities. The colleague without children becomes the ‘available’ one, the person expected to stay late, take short-notice travel, or absorb more because ‘they have fewer responsibilities.’ Often this is simply untrue.

These assumptions shape workloads, team dynamics and emotional wellbeing even though no policy explicitly states them. The Equality Act 2010 protects pregnancy and maternity but offers no comparable protection for those experiencing pregnancy loss, failed IVF, ongoing fertility treatment, or the grief of knowing pregnancy is not possible. Adoption and fostering journeys also carry emotional and practical demands that rarely feature in workplace conversations or policies.

The mental health cost is significant. The cumulative impact of small, unthinking moments and invisible assumptions can lead to chronic stress, anxiety, burnout, depression, suicidal thoughts, isolation, sudden grief triggers, reduced psychological safety and a diminished sense of belonging, which all impact performance and overall wellbeing.

I’ve seen how quickly a throwaway comment, a scan photo or an assumption can knock the wind out of someone navigating childlessness. Most colleagues never realise it has happened. That is the real core of the problem.

What can leaders in PR and comms do?

1. Drop assumptions completely. You don’t know someone else’s story. Avoid filling in the gaps with imagined narratives or stereotypes about who has children and who doesn’t.

2. Use accurate language. Childless and childfree are not interchangeable. They describe different experiences, and only the individual can choose the term that fits. If in doubt, don’t label anyone at all.

3. Create protocol for baby-related posts and spaces. A quick check-in before sharing scan photos or announcements supports inclusion. Avoid ‘new arrivals’ boards by the coffee machine (or indeed, anywhere).

4. Challenge workload bias. Availability is not determined by parenthood status.

5. Update policies to reflect real lives. Include reproductive loss, illness-linked fertility issues, social infertility and wider caring responsibilities.

6. Broaden your definition of family. Family includes parents, siblings, partners, step-children, friends, communities, animals and more.

7. Drop the sacrifice comparisons. No single group owns exhaustion or complexity.

Kindness is made visible in the ways we speak, share, assume and include. Those of us who are childless often carry experiences that sit just beneath the surface. We are in every team, shaping campaigns, leading projects, supporting others and delivering under pressure while sometimes navigating a grief that is invisible unless someone chooses to look.

It’s time our industry started looking and having the honest, humane and inclusive conversations that are long overdue. Let us lead on this and hope that others will follow.

*There are current data gaps for trans and non-binary people. Research is ongoing.

Dannie-Lu Carr is an ILM Level 7 executive coach, senior training consultant and executive speaker coach specialising in personal impact, high-stakes communication and creativity under pressure. With 18+ years in leadership development and behavioural change, she helps senior and board-level leaders sharpen their presence, influence and message when it matters most. 

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