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Key points
- The number-one reason people under 50 don't have kids is that they just don't want to.
- The expense and concern about the state of the world are factors in the decision not to have kids.
- Some people don't like children or simply prefer to pursue other interests and goals in life.
Increasingly, people under the age of 50 who do not already have kids are saying that they are unlikely to ever have kids. According to a just-released report from the Pew Research Center, “The Experiences of U.S. Adults Who Don’t Have Children,” close to half of those adults surveyed in 2023, 47 percent, said they were unlikely to have children. That’s a big jump from just five years before, in 2018, when just 37 percent said the same thing.
Reasons Why Adults Under 50 Are Unlikely to Ever Have Children
Why is this happening? The Pew report addressed that, too. The 770 adults, ages 18-49, from a national sample who said that they were unlikely to have kids were given a list of possible reasons and asked whether each one was a major reason for not having children.
Were they worried about the costs? Yes, more than a third, 36 percent, said they couldn’t afford to raise a child. Were they concerned about the environment? Yes, 26 percent said that was a major factor. What about the state of the world? Yes, 38 percent said that was a major consideration. Did they want to focus on other things? That was a big one: 44 percent said that was a major reason they were unlikely to ever have children.
Many people want to find a partner before they have children. For 24 percent, not finding the right partner was a major reason they were unlikely to have kids.
Other reasons mattered, too, but to fewer people. One in five, 20 percent, said that they don’t really like kids. Nearly as many, 18 percent, said they had negative experiences with their own family growing up. Thirteen percent pointed to infertility or other medical reasons. Of those who had a spouse or partner, 11 percent said their spouse or partner did not want to have children.
The number-one reason, by far, for not having kids was simple: They just don’t want to. Close to 6 in 10, 57 percent, said that was a major reason.
Adults Over 50 With No Children: Reasons They Never Had Them
Adults over 50 who had no children were also surveyed; 2,542 of them from a national sample were also asked why they did not have children.
These older adults were far less likely to say they never had children because they just didn’t want to, 31 percent compared to 57 percent of the younger adults. They were also much less likely to say that they wanted to focus on other things, 21 percent compared to 44 percent, or that they don’t really like children, 8 percent compared to 20 percent.
The one reason they endorsed notably more often than the younger adults was that they hadn’t found the right partner, 33 percent compared to 24 percent.
The older adults were asked about one other reason that was not included in the survey of the younger adults: It just never happened. For 39 percent, that was the number-one reason they never had children.
Part of a Broader Cultural Transformation
The younger adults said that they just don’t want to have kids; they want to focus on other things, and they don’t really like children. Those are all reasons that are often socially stigmatized, especially for women. Women are supposed to want kids, they are supposed to want to focus on kids, and they are not supposed to say that they don’t like kids. And yet, young adults, far more often than older ones, are saying just those things.
In an eye-opening finding from previous Pew surveys, at least half of all solo single people (they did not have a romantic partner) said that they did not want a romantic relationship or even a date. The most common reason was that they just liked being single; 72 percent endorsed that as a reason.
I study people who are Single at Heart—they love being single, and they are happy and flourishing because they are single, not in spite of it. Like adults (single or coupled) who choose not to have kids, the single at heart are taking the less celebrated, more stigmatized path. They are staying single when the cultural mythology insists that just about everyone wants to marry. And they are not suffering because of it; they are thriving.
I see the people choosing not to have kids and the people choosing to stay single as part of a larger cultural change that has been unfolding for many decades—the increasing acceptability and desirability of being true to yourself rather than following a conventional life path.
Remember the one reason that older adults endorsed noticeably more often than the younger ones? They hadn’t found the right partner. That age difference is also part of the growing willingness of adults to follow their hearts, even when doing so is going against norms and expectations.
Younger adults know that having children with a spouse or romantic partner is what is expected and celebrated, while single parenting is still somewhat stigmatized. But not having a romantic partner is not what matters most in their decision not to ever have kids. Instead, they just don’t want them.
“Childless Cat Ladies”
Women who do not have children have surged to the top of our cultural conversations because of a remark by the Vice Presidential nominee of the Republican party, J. D. Vance: “We are effectively running this country… by a bunch of childless cat ladies, who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
Perhaps that was meant to shame women who do not have children, but I think it is a sign of our evolving cultural norms and greater acceptance of following your heart that the result has been quite different. Women with cats and not children and their millions of allies are embracing their status rather than running away from it. A clip of Vance making his derogatory statement was posted on X (Twitter) and instantly went viral, inspiring a barrage of catty comments and a whole litter of think pieces. Memes have proliferated. New groups of proud, childfree cat ladies are emerging.
J.D. Vance is hardly the only person who seems threatened by women who want to be in charge of their own life decisions, but this is a cultural change that is unlikely to be reversed anytime soon.
Facebook/LinkedIn image: PeopleImages.com - Yuri A/Shutterstock/Shutterstock
