Why more U.S. adults are choosing not to have kids
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An increasing share of adults under 50 say they're unlikely to have kids — and the major reason is, well, they just don't want them, according to a report from Pew Research Center out Thursday morning.
Why it matters: The U.S. fertility rate is at a historic low, posing problems for future economic growth, and the survey takes a crack at figuring out what's going on.
By the numbers: 47% of adults under 50 without kids say they're unlikely to have them — up 10 percentage points from 2018.
- Of those who said they're unlikely to have children, 57% said "they just don't want to."
- Among the other reasons: 44% said they wanted to focus on different things. 38% pointed to the state of the world, other than the environment. And 36% said they couldn't afford to raise a child. (Read the full list.)
- 13% cited infertility or other medical reasons.
Stunning stat: 64% of young women say they just don't want children, compared to 50% of men.
How they did it: Within the last year, Pew surveyed 770 adults under age 50 and 2,542 adults age 50 and older without kids.
- The older folks had different reasons for not having children — at the top? "It just never happened."
The big picture: Birth rates are falling in most rich countries.
- In the U.S., it's the child-free group — not people having fewer children — that's driving much of the decline, per an analysis reported in the WSJ. "Childlessness accounted for over two-thirds of the 6.5% drop in average births between 2012 to 2022."
