In a two-part interview, Il-Kollettiv discusses women who choose not to have children, the national fertility rate and communities with the team of Wombs on Strike.

“We need to examine the roots and causes of this decline,” said Archbishop Scicluna from the pulpit during the pontifical mass celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Republic of Malta. “In the interest of preserving our heritage and ethnicity, we must be proactive in promoting the blessing of children within our families.”

It was a stern warning that set off quite a few alarm bells, more so in an island still getting to grips with the influx of foreign workers and the spectre of ethnic extinction very much in the room.

Yet the Archbishop’s fears – who quoted statistics outlining the decline in the national fertility rate from 2.74 in 1964 to 1.11 in 2024 – ignore the realities of a growing demographic, that of women who choose not to have children.

Wombs on Strike, an interdisciplinary artistic exploration whose title references journalist Mona Chollet’s feminist bestseller In Defence of Witches: Why women are still on trial (2023), seeks to bring to the fore these diverse definitions of womanhood by collecting and exploring the experiences of women across three generations. Twenty-six women shared their experiences in individual interviews and workshops, after an open call for their stories.

Kristina Borg, Virginia Monteforte, Roberta Scerri and Erica Muscat, part of the team behind the 15-month initiative, can tell us the other side of the story. For starters, let’s get the semantics right.

“The difference between a ‘childless’ and a ‘child-free’ woman is that the former is an involuntary situation of being without children, due to various circumstances – including medical and biological. A ‘child-free’ woman is making a conscious decision.

We used the term ‘childfree,’ but with great caution. Firstly, throughout the course of the project it became evident that this term didn’t adequately resonate with all the participating women. Secondly, we wanted them to give us their understanding and use of the language.

In the different stories, there is no regret or grief for not having children. Also, participants largely preferred not to define their identity by an absence or as the negative of motherhood; as such many didn’t feel the need for a specific term. In their view, their life is already complete without children, and they have nothing less than other women. As one participant put it, ‘not being a mother does not define me.’

These women’s stories actively question the inherited versions of womanhood and challenge conventional notions of reproduction, expanding the concept of fertility to include diverse ways of nurturing. Overall, participants demonstrated that their capacity for care expands outward towards communities, animals, the environment, and creativity.”

Women who choose not to have children are often described as selfish, and their wombs as “wasted” since they’re not carrying out their basic childbearing function. Do the study participants feel they’re incomplete women?

On the one hand, the project confirms the societal expectations and gender stereotypes around women who choose not to have children. The list is endless, but the focus was never to try and reclaim oneself. Rather than framing women’s experiences of being childfree around "justifying" such a choice, or reacting to stereotypes, the research focused on the being and the doing: how do women build fulfilling lives on their own internal values?

The findings contradict the notions of women with the no-child life choice as incomplete. The participants have clearly outlined and described how building a fulfilling life revolves around their interests, dreams, ambitions, dislikes, the places they frequent, and the people present in their life. It became clearly evident that one’s purpose in life as a woman with a childfree lifestyle is a very nuanced, diverse and subjective experience, yet, there was agreement that life is an ongoing journey of “becoming”, characterised by continuous self-discovery and self-exploration.

What’s the main reason behind these women’s choice to remain child-free?

This is perhaps the cliché question, together with “why are women having fewer children?”

Over the course of the past months, this was the most common question asked by the media and the press. However, we have rejected this question and will continue to reject it. We have never asked this question to the women participants; instead we have explored how participants arrived at their decision. The entry point is totally different; we wanted a diverse attitude and ethical approach.

Whereas the former question presumes that women should have children as the only proper way for them to live, expecting them to justify their choice, the project’s questioning brought a sense of agency, acknowledging first and foremost the choice itself, which is neither contested nor doubted.

As Rebecca Solnit put it, ‘just because the question can be answered doesn’t mean that anyone is obliged to answer it, or that it ought to be asked. …There is no good answer to how to be a woman; the art may instead lie in how we refuse the question’.

The project moved away from the dominant approach that often revolves around the childfree narrative, and instead strives to honour the women participants for who they are, and not for who they are not.

The Archbishop sounded a warning about the “ethnic extinction” of the Maltese, listing low birth rates alongside greed and addictions as “enemies of the country”. On the other hand, he’s also cautioned that the government shouldn’t be throwing subsidies at the problem. Is the Archbishop making too big a fuss? Do his statements match the experiences of these women?

The issue of the “ethnic extinction” is a shared concern, not just in Malta but in other countries too, amongst people who are still reasoning in the terms of a “natural” national belonging, while the present shows us that we are in the era of a post-national global civil society.

Given the high rates and concentration of people in Malta whose origin is elsewhere, and given that these people are making Malta their home and consequently having children, then continuing to address the low birth rate just in terms of “ethnicity” and Maltese blood, implies dangerous racist and xenophobic tendencies.

Do you think the Archbishop’s assessment of materialism as the dominant factor behind the low national birth rate is correct? What’s your take on the idea that a woman who chooses not to have kids is a materialist woman?

Most of the participants opt for a very practical lifestyle, and this emerged from their need to accomplish their daily tasks as responsibly and thoroughly as possible, and this was confirmed in the discussion about the clothes they like to wear and in which they feel comfortable with their body.

The participants also showed that they are very socially aware, and generous, and share their sense of care with other humans and living beings. Rather than focusing their care on a dependent child, they tend to distribute it across a wider context, empathising with socio-political and environmental causes in both the immediate and global scenarios.

This deep alignment with a wider ecosystem is reflected in the participants' daily choices and lifestyles. For instance, a 43-year-old participant described how environmental awareness translates into conscious consumer habits aimed at minimising environmental impact, “I try to live my life with a certain set of values; one of them being as sustainable as possible. So I don’t use certain brands.”

To be continued

Wombs on Strike is a collaboration with the Women’s Rights Foundation and Il-Kollettiv. This project forms part of the Spazju Kreattiv programme 2026-27 and is supported by Arts Council Malta and the Mediterranean Women’s Fund.

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