A new study breaks down the reasons more U.S. adults say they are unlikely to have children.

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Like Ms. McKay, a growing number of U.S. adults say they are unlikely to raise children, according to a study released on Thursday by the Pew Research Center. When the survey was conducted in 2023, 47 percent of those younger than 50 without children said they were unlikely ever to have children, an increase of 10 percentage points since 2018.

When asked why kids were not in their future, 57 percent said they simply didn’t want to have them. Women were more likely to respond this way than men (64 percent vs. 50 percent). Further reasons included the desire to focus on other things, like their career or interests; concerns about the state of the world; worries about the costs involved in raising a child; concerns about the environment, including climate change; and not having found the right partner.

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
    20·
    4 months ago

    well that and having to watch the kids have a lower quality of life than you had and that includes the part you provide as well as their long term prospects.

    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
      132·
      4 months ago

      Right! There’s no shortage of reasons not to have kids. If I felt they were easy to afford and I knew they’d turn out well, I might just be interested. But no such guarantees exist so yeah I’m not risking being stressed an insane amount for 25%+ of my life.

      The behavior I see in kids alone is probably enough though. My kids would have to go to school with that? All the trauma I experienced in school as a kid? Yeah I’m not choosing that for someone else. And I’m absolutely not home schooling either. I know someone whose life was destroyed by that and other choices his parents made.