The Real Lives of Women Who Never Have Children

For women, having children is similar to getting married: it is what people expect of them. When women—especially young women—say that they don’t want to have kids, they are not always taken seriously. “Oh, you’ll change your mind,” they are told. Or, “Wait until your biological clock starts ticking.”

But is that really true?

In the U.S. and other industrialized countries around the world, the number of women who postpone having kids, or who get to the end of their childbearing years without having any biological children, is on the rise. In the U.S. in 2014, almost half of all women between the ages of 18 and 39 had no children. By their mid-40s, customarily considered the likely end of childbearing years (though of course there are exceptions), about 1 in 7 (or 14 percent) never did have any kids.

What are the pathways through the childbearing years for women who end up having no biological children? Do they realize all along, starting when they are very young, that they are not going to have kids? Do they start out thinking they will have kids and then change their minds or run into various obstacles? Do they expect to have kids, year after year, but keep postponing it, until they start expecting not to have kids?

An unprecedented 33-year study of women who never have children was published in the June 2019 issue of Social Forces. Sociologists Anna Rybinska and Philip Morgan of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill analyzed data from nearly 4,500 women in the U.S. who were born between 1957 and 1965.

Over the course of their childbearing years, the women were asked 19 times whether they expected to have children (or whether they expected to have more children if they already had at least one). The women were asked about their expectations for the last time when they were between 47 and 56 years old. At that point, about 14 percent of them (661 out of 4,473) never did have any biological children.

Rybinska and Morgan used three approaches to determining the connection, for these women, between saying that they didn’t expect to have kids and actually not having any kids. First, they started with the women who said they did not expect to have children and looked at whether they were any less likely to have children than the women who said they did expect to have children. Second, they started at the end, with the women who never did have biological children, and looked at how many said, when they were younger, that they expected not to have children. Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, they looked at different pathways to not having kids (and to having them).

If the women said they did not want children, did they end up not having children?

It mattered what the women said about whether they expected to have children. Even when they were asked the question at a very young age, the women’s answers had meaning. Although some changed their mind, the women who said they did not expect to have children were far more likely to end up not having children than the women who said they did expect to have children.

When they were asked at age 24, the women who expected not to have children were 4.5 times more likely not to have children than the women who said they did expect to have children.

At age 30, women’s expectations were even more powerfully connected to what actually happened. The women who expected not to have children were 5.1 times more likely not to have children than the women who said they did expect to have children.

At age 40, the women who expected not to have children were 7 times more likely not to have children than the women who said they did expect to have children.

At age 46, women who expected not to have children were 7.7 times more likely not to have children than the women who said they did expect to have children.

Of the women who never had biological children, how many expected not to have any children when they were younger?

Of the 611 who never did have biological children, how many of them were already saying they did not expect to have kids when they were younger?

It depended on the age when they were asked. When they were 24 years old, only 10 percent said that they did not expect to have any biological children. But their numbers increased at every age after that.

When they were 30, 24 percent of the women who did not have children were already saying that they did not expect to have children.

When they were 34, 43 percent of the women who did not have children were saying that they did not expect to have children.

When they were 40, 78 percent of the women who did not have children were saying that they did not expect to have children.

When they were 46, 92 percent of the women who did not have children were saying that they did not expect to have children.

What were the different pathways to not having children?

Because the authors followed the 4,473 women across the course of their child-bearing years, they could track their different paths to never having any kids. First, I’ll describe the four paths Rybinska and Morgan documented, and then I’ll tell you the percentage of women who followed each of those paths.

1. Committed to Not Having Children, From the First Time They Are Asked Through the Last

The women who were committed to not having children said, every time they were asked, that they did not expect to have any children.

2. Expected to Have Children, But Never Did

Some women unexpectedly ended up having no children. Every time they were asked, they said that they expected to have children, but they never did have any.

3. Undecided at First, Ends Up Expecting Not to Have Children

Some women give different answers at different times to the question of whether they expect to have children. For example, when they are very young, they might say that they do expect to have children. Then, later on, they might say that they do not. Then, when asked again, they may go back to saying that they do expect to have children.

The researchers call these women undecided. They end up not having children, but they were not always sure that’s what they wanted.

4. Postpones Having Children, Then Expects Not to Have Children

There are some women who, for years, say that they do expect to have children every time they are asked. They haven’t gotten to it yet, but they expect to. Then their answer changes. They start saying that they do not expect to have children, and that continues until the end of their childbearing years. The researchers describe these women as postponing having children, and then ultimately not having any.

Which pathways to not having children were the most commonplace?

51 percent were undecided at first

Of all the 611 women who ended up not having any children, just over half of them (336, or 51 percent) were undecided at first. They changed their minds during their 20s and 30s.

46 percent kept postponing having children and then had none

The second most common route to not having children was a postponement. The women say they want children every time they are asked up until a point; then they say they don’t want children, and they stick to that. Of the 611 women who did not have kids, 261 of them followed this pattern of postponement.

2 percent were consistently committed to not having children

Of the 611 women who never had kids, 11 of them (2 percent) consistently said that they did not expect to have kids. Every time they were asked, starting from the very youngest age, they said they were not going to have kids.

0.5 percent consistently expected to have kids, but never did

It was very rare for women to say, every time they were asked, that they expected to have kids, but then never have any. That was true of only 3 of the 611 women who never had kids, or one-half of one percent.

What were the different pathways to having children?

Although Rybinska and Morgan were primarily interested in women who do not have kids, they also looked at the women who did have biological children. They documented three pathways to motherhood.

A. Becomes a Mother at a Young Age: 18.3% of All Mothers

Of the 3,862 women who had biological children, 708 of them (18.3 percent) already had a child when they were very young

B. Undecided at First, Ends Up Having Biological Children: 14 Percent of All Mothers

Some of the women who ended up having at least one biological child were undecided at first. They gave different answers at different times to the question of whether they expected to have children. Of the 3,862 women who did become mothers, 542 of them (14 percent) changed their minds at different times.

C. Postponed Having Children, Then Had Biological Children: 67.6 Percent of All Mothers

Some women said that they expected to have children every time they were asked. Eventually, they did become mothers. Of the 3,862 women who eventually had biological children, two-thirds of them (2,612, or 67.6 percent) postponed becoming mothers for a while.

Conclusions

From an early age, women have expectations about whether they will have children. Then life happens. Unforeseen obstacles might arise. Their goals and interests might change, especially now that women are postponing having children longer than they did a generation or so ago.

Even so, women who say they don’t expect to have kids are far more likely not to have kids than women who do expect to have kids. They know what they are talking about, even when they are still very young.

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