Far more adults don’t want children than previously thought
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Fertility rates in the United States have plunged to record lows, and this could be related to the fact that more people are choosing not to have children.
National fertility data provided by the U.S. Census and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lump together all adults who aren’t parents, making it difficult to understand how many people identify as child-free.
As social scientists, we think it’s important to distinguish child-free individuals from those who are childless or not yet parents. People who are child-free make the conscious decision not to have kids. They’re distinct from childless individuals – adults who want children but can’t have them – and from people who plan to have children in the future.
In a recent study of 1,000 people, we found that over 1 in 4 Michigan adults did not want biological or adopted children and were, therefore, child-free. This number was much higher than those reported in the few past national studies that have attempted to identify child-free people, which placed the percentage between 2% and 9%.
