According to the new U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, women who succeed in managerial and professional occupations (most notably in the Northeast) are leading the rapidly accelerating trend of childlessness, which includes nearly half of all women aged 15 to 44. Childless women at age 40 will likely never have children, while twice as many women today aged 40 to 44 have only one child compared to in 1976.
Grim reality: Ever-dropping birth rate means economic devastation for Baby Boomers and thereafter
For background, click headlines below to read previous articles:
Teenage Pregnancy & Birth Rates Drop to Historic Lows
American Trend: Fewer Children, More Animals/Pets
Childless Women: White and More Educated
Women Shun Kids More Effectively, Liberals Cheer
Also read Where Liberalism Flourishes, Population Diminishes
-- From "More Women Aren’t Having Children, Survey Finds" by Victor Luckerson, Time Magazine 4/7/15
More women in the U.S. are childless than at any other time since the government began keeping track, a new survey found.
Among women between 25 and 29, 49.6% were childless in 2014, also an all-time high. In the group between 30 and 34, 28.9% were childless, up from 28.2% in 2012 but below an all-time high of 29.7% in 2010.
As of 2013, the general fertility rate in the U.S., as measured by the number of babies women between 15 and 44 have over their lifetimes, had fallen for six straight years and sat at 1.86, according to the New York Times. Maintaining a stable U.S. population would require a fertility rate of 2.1.
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From "Census Report: More women opting out of motherhood" by Erin Lowrey, Digital Content Manager, WDAM-TV7 (Hattiesburg, MS) 4/10/15
The decline may be linked back to the wide use of birth control and contraception. When the statistics were first being measured, birth control had only been around for about ten years. With contraception being widely used and easy to access, women can now choose when they want to become pregnant.
However, career goals can also be determining factor in the decline, according to the data.
The report confirmed that women age 40 to 50 in 2014 who were in managerial or professional occupations were more likely to be childless than women of similar age in other occupations.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "A Record Percentage Of Women Don't Have Kids. Here's Why That Makes Sense." by Emma Gray, The Huffington Post 4/9/15
The census data is backed up by data from the National Center for Health Statistics. According to a recent report, in 2013 there were just 62.9 births for every 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44 in the U.S. -- an all-time low.
As Mic Senior Editor Elizabeth Plank argued, for many women, not having kids may simply be the most rational choice. . . . "There has been a profound disconnect between the speed at which women have been asked to take full-time roles in the workplace and the rate at which we've adapted laws and social programs to support this drastic change in the lives of women," writes Plank. "The reality is that if you're both a mother and an employee, every day is a double-shift."
Many women still want to become moms, but others realize that life without kids can be just as fulfilling. As Sezin Koehler wrote for The Huffington Post in September: "I don't need to push a child out of my vagina to be a real woman."
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From "US Birth Rates Continue To Plummet: Nearly Half Of All American Women Do Not Have A Child" by Justin Caba, Medical Daily 4/9/15
Unfortunately, it seems that some women in today’s childless generation will remain that way. Seventeen percent of women without a child are between the ages of 45 and 50, which is outside the healthy childbearing age range. Meanwhile, 49.6 percent of women within the typical fertility age — between the ages of 25 and 29 — did not have children in 2014. Three out of every four childless women had never been married either.
More and more research suggests that women are either holding off getting pregnant or forgoing it completely, not due to fertility or infertility, but because they are waiting to become financially stable, have more professional opportunities, and better access to different avenues of birth control. Another survey conducted by the CDC found that female sterilization has become almost as widely used as birth control pills.
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From "More U.S. Women Are Going Childless" by Neil Shah, Wall Street Journal 4/7/15
Some Americans may now prefer life without children, though most still report in surveys that they want two kids. Others may be struggling to have children, or can’t afford expensive fertility treatments.
Juggling work and family is a big factor. Census said women aged 40 to 50 years who were in managerial or professional occupations were more likely to be childless than women of similar age in other occupations.
With more women having their first child in their mid 30s, late 30s and early 40s, American families may be shrinking: The number of women aged 40 to 44 who had only one child roughly doubled between 1976 and 2014, Census said.
These trends have helped push America’s fertility rate to record lows . . .
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From "Why More Women Are Choosing Not to Have Children" by Rachel Grumman Bender, Yahoo Parenting 4/9/15
There are several possible reasons why birth rates are dropping, including women delaying getting married and having children as their career takes a front seat. . . .
For others, becoming a parent simply isn’t a calling. “I’ve always known I didn’t want kids,” Kathleen D. tells Yahoo Parenting. “I just never felt the desire. The main reason I don’t want them is because I really value my freedom. I always want to be able to take risks and move wherever I want in the world without having to worry about their school. If my husband and I lose everything, we only have to take care of ourselves.”
For Anne R. and her husband, not having children stemmed from a combination of never feeling ready for kids, as well as focusing on their careers and a passion for traveling at a moment’s notice. “After 11 years of marriage, I feel like I can say, we’re pretty good at being married, but I’m not sure we’d be great parents,” she tells Yahoo Parenting. “Now, I’m 35 and my husband is 37, so we kind of faced the decision, and it’s like, wow, we’re really happy and content and a lot of married couples don’t get to say that, so let’s just be okay with it and keep on doing what we’re doing.”
This is a growing trend that Ellen L. Walker, Ph.D., author of Complete Without Kids . . .
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Also read Women Who Give Birth Live Longer and Healthier
From "More women are childless, even though Americans want bigger families" by Quentin Fottrell, MarketWatch 4/7/15
. . . many Americans do wish they had more children. Michelle Patterson, 44, had two children 17 months apart. “We ended up having kids right away,” she says. “The plan was to wait awhile. That wasn’t in the cards.” At the time of her second pregnancy, she was vice president at a major recruitment firm. She feared that having another child so soon would impact her career and even the company. “I was petrified of telling the president of my company that I was pregnant again,” she says. “I asked myself, ‘How can I be vice president of this company and do this?’”
Many Americans are indeed choosing to have fewer children than their parents did. Despite this, however, recent research finds that many still long to have bigger families. . . .
More surprisingly perhaps, around 40% of U.S. women nearing the end of their childbearing years say they have fewer children than their ideal, according to the General Social Survey carried out by NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan, independent research organization. . . .
“More women are also delaying having a family to focus on their career and education and, as time goes on, the window of fertility gets smaller and smaller,” [senior researcher at Pew Research Center, Gretchen] Livingston says. Plus, some women who want to have kids lack a suitable partner, she adds. . . .
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Also click headlines below to read previous articles on marriage rates:
More Women Shack Up & Give Birth; Marriage Rare
One-third of Households are People Living Alone
Marriage Rates Low Among Millennial Generation
Marriage Trend: Confined within Church
