Study explores how Swedish solo moms talk about donor conception
Not family now, maybe kin later: A qualitative study of disclosure and everyday kinship practices among Swedish single mothers by choice (Ström, 2026)
Ström, M. (2026). Not family now, maybe kin later: A qualitative study of disclosure and everyday kinship practices among Swedish single mothers by choice [Master’s thesis, Stockholm University]. Department of Sociology.
Editor’s Note: This is an unpublished master’s thesis, not a journal article. It has not undergone formal peer review, though it was supervised by Andrea Voyer (Stockholm University) and Helena Volgsten (Uppsala University) and approved by the Swedish Ethics Review Authority.
Geographic Region: Sweden
Research Question: How do Swedish single mothers by choice (SMBC) with young children understand and negotiate family and kinship boundaries in relation to donor-related genetic ties?
Design: Qualitative study using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, meaning the researcher aimed to understand how participants experience and make meaning of family and kinship in everyday life, rather than to test a specific hypothesis or measure outcomes numerically. Data collection included semi-structured phone interviews, conducted between January and March 2026. All interviews opened with the same question (“Can you describe what your family situation looks like today?”) and then moved through topics including pathways to motherhood, everyday family life, support networks, disclosure, donors, donor siblings, and future expectations. Interviews were transcribed verbatim in Swedish, coded initially in Swedish, and translated into English, with attention to preserving meaning and tone. The analysis drew on three theoretical concepts: temporal discordance (how past, present, and future genetic ties can coexist and create tension), relational authority (who holds the moral right to define, initiate, or limit a relationship), and displaying family (how people actively signal to themselves and others that their relationships count as family).
Editor’s Note: The findings from this study are an interpretive account of how 16 women narrated their experience, not a measurement of donor conception outcomes. It’s a legitimate and valuable kind of knowledge, but it answers a different question than “is this good for kids.” In addition, the theoretical framework is largely borrowed from Nordqvist and Gilman’s (2022) study of donors and reapplied here to mothers.
Sample: 16 women from an earlier cohort of 54 single Swedish women who began pursuing donor-assisted parenthood shortly after Sweden’s 2016 legal reform granted single women access to publicly funded donor insemination. Of the original 54, 5 could not be located, and of the 31 who responded to a follow-up questionnaire (63% response rate), 18 had become mothers through donor conception and met inclusion criteria; 16 ultimately completed interviews. At the time of the interviews, participants were 40–47 years old and had become mothers between ages 34 and 41. Nine had one child, and seven had two. Children were born between 2017 and 2023 (ages 3 to 9 years old). Most children were conceived via sperm donation; one via double donation (egg and sperm). All donors were identity-release donors whose identities were unknown to the families at the time of the study. Mothers treated in Denmark had access to donor numbers and more non-identifying information than those treated in Sweden. No participants had contact with donor siblings in other families. Most had higher education and medium-to-high incomes, though the sample also included mothers with lower incomes and lower educational attainment. Twelve were still single parents at the time of interview; four had entered relationships, with three partners taking on parental roles. Most participants had regular contact with other SMBCs and described this as an important source of practical and emotional support.
Key Findings
Donor and donor-sibling ties were acknowledged but placed outside the family in the present, with their meaning left open for the child’s future.
Mothers consistently described donors with gratitude but positioned them as facilitators rather than family members or father figures. Most used the word “donor” specifically to avoid implying a parental relationship.
Several mothers described the donor as capable of becoming suddenly, briefly present in their thinking, even though he was mostly absent from daily consideration.
All participants supported their child’s future right to learn the donor’s identity and emphasized that it should be the child’s decision.
Donor siblings (children conceived using the same donor) were harder for mothers to categorize than donors themselves. Some avoided the term “sibling” altogether, using phrases like “genetically similar” instead, because the relationship lacked shared history or daily contact.
None of the 16 mothers had done DNA testing on their children to identify donor siblings or donor relatives, and several chose not to search registries or social media using donor numbers. Several mothers reflected that choosing not to act (not testing, not searching) was itself a decision with consequences, since it already shapes what the child later finds familiar, thinkable, or normal.
Disclosure was treated as a moral obligation and used to make the family understandable, both to the child and to the outside world
Fifteen of the sixteen mothers had told their children about their donor conception, typically starting in infancy as a way of making the story feel natural and rehearsed for the mother herself. Two mothers had not followed the typical early-disclosure pattern: one told her daughter at age seven, and the other had not yet told her nearly 8-year-old son by the time of the interview. Both of these mothers had partners who had taken on parental roles.
Disclosure served a specific practical function in these single-parent families: because the absence of a father was often socially visible, mothers needed a way to explain the family structure without implying the donor was a father.
Children’s books about donor conception and family diversity were widely used as a low-pressure, repeatable way to introduce and revisit the topic over time.
Discussion of donor siblings with children was far less developed than discussion of the donor. Most mothers said they planned to address donor siblings later, describing the topic as too abstract or complex for young children, and expressing a wish for more research or guidance on how to approach it.
Editor’s Note: Mothers framed “letting the child decide” as a way to protect the child’s future autonomy, but the author is careful to point out that inaction is not neutral. A mother’s choice of language (“donor” vs. “dad seeds” vs. “father”), her decision about searching for genetic connections, and the emotional tone she brings to talking about donor conception are all shaping what the child will experience as thinkable, normal, or desirable.
Limitations: For some, interviews took place years after the transition to motherhood, and accounts of parenting and family life may be shaped by a wish to present oneself favorably. Recruitment through a single original clinic cohort limits generalizability, though participants were geographically dispersed and some had used other clinics for treatment. The study does not report racial or ethnic composition of participants, and the sample is skewed toward higher-education, higher-income women. This limits what the study can say about how race, class, or immigration background shape these disclosure and kinship practices.
Applications: The findings should be read as an in-depth account of common patterns within a fairly narrow slice of the Swedish SMBC population, not a comprehensive picture of it.
Funding Source: Not reported
Lead Author: Marie Ström is a graduate student who completed this work as a Master’s thesis in Sociology at Stockholm University (Spring 2026), under the supervision of Andrea Voyer, with Helena Volgsten (registered midwife and associate professor at Uppsala University’s Department of Women’s and Children’s Health) serving as co-supervisor. The author discloses her positioning as a parent who formed her family through egg donation and adoption.
Regulatory Context
Sweden was one of the first countries in the world to end anonymous sperm donation, doing so in 1985.
Only altruistic gamete donation is permitted; donors may be reimbursed for expenses but not paid for gametes themselves, and donation is only legal through authorized fertility clinics. Both sperm and egg donation are permitted, and embryo donation became legal in 2019.
Access to donor insemination was extended to same-sex female couples in 2005 and to single women in 2016. IVF access for same-sex couples followed in 2016. All donors and recipients must undergo counseling and medical/psychological screening.
Under Sweden’s identity-release system, donor-conceived individuals have the legal right to obtain identifying information about their donor once they reach “sufficient maturity”, typically interpreted as around age 18, though no specific age is set in law.
Since a 2019 reform to the Children and Parents Code, parents are legally required to inform donor-conceived children about their conception, though as this thesis notes, most participating mothers were unaware of this specific legal requirement and disclosed anyway, suggesting social norms rather than legal knowledge were the primary driver.
In Sweden, a donor can contribute to a maximum of six families.
A national register of donor treatments is maintained by the National Board of Health and Welfare, and contact between donor siblings can be facilitated through medical records once individuals are considered sufficiently mature and all parties consent.
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