Voluntary non-reproduction

Factual Questions
21

40% is greatly inflated. It seems to be the kind of number you find when looking at the percentage of 15-44 year old women who have not given birth. But for 40 - 44 year olds it’s about 20%.

It’s hard to answer the OP’s question because some of those women probably made a clear decision not to have children, some postponed it until too late or were infertile - of these, some probably decided they were perfectly happy without children although that wasn’t their intention originally, and some probably remain unhappy with it.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_2001_Nov_1/ai_79501204/
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/24/national/main579973.shtml

22

The overall fertility rate in the US is 2.1 children per woman, which is right at replacement. Hispanics are at 2.9, and all other major ethnic groups are below replacement. The rate for whites IIRC is somewhere around 1.8. I suspect if you look at college graduates you would get an even lower number.

Fertility rates are dropping all over the world. Demographers are expecting the whole world to drop below 2.1 sometime between 2040 and 50.

Countries like Germany and Japan are down around 1.3.

There hasn’t been a mass outbreak of concern about overpopulation. It is just that more of the population is living in urban areas and as woman get jobs, children become a liability or a rather expensive luxury.

I don’t think I would have ever anticipated that the most effective birth control device would be a paycheck.

23

Maybe the 40% statistic was talking about the general population overall, not just women. Regardless, ~20% of women being un-childed is a significant percentage of the population to be completely disregarded.

24

I have no idea what the real statistics are, but you can add me as a data point. 51 year old male, potent as far as I know, hate kids (yes, even YOUR kids suck in my mind) and never wanted any, and never sired any (again, as far as I know) and never will. No religious or philosophical reasons; I just hate kids and would never want the hassle of dealing with them…TRM

25

The concern is just the opposite. The economics of most tax-supported retirement plans was based on a ratio of working to retired of about 8 to 1. This was logical with a baby boom, retire at 65, and life expectancies in the mid-70’s. With people expecting Freedom-55, and living to 90 with even fewer children, this ratio is in danger of falling below 2 to 1. This is why everyone screams about social security going bankrupt. DOn’t expect government levels same as today when you retire unless something really weird (good) happens to the economy.

Also, it takes two to tango. I would like kids, my wife prefers not. Not for ideological reasons, but just out of fear that she won’t do a good job. This isn’t a disagreement at the level of “or else…”. I recall a number of childless couples where I worked, and one lady remarked that “so-and-so wanted children and her husband didn’t; and she’s unhappy about it…” but none of these couples split up. OTOH, a friend of mine was of the sort who hated babies, the one who mumbled under his breath about the screaming kids in a restaurant. Anyhow, his wife ended up pregnant. I never did inquire the circumstances, but he seems to turn out be an excellent father. accidents happen.

The scary thing is that generally it’s the smarter people who choose not to have kids, for whatever that does for our species. If you are just sufficiently comfortable, you recognize that a child will cost your lifestyle significantly.

26

Female, happily married, 41, have pretty much close to zero interest in having kids. Being an aunt is just fine by me. I believe many people end up having kids just because they feel like it’s something that partnered adults do at some point.

I believe people should only have kids if they REALLY want to have kids (and sometimes not even then). I don’t, and if I’m going to change my mind on that, at this point in my life I’d better get cracking. I get little enough sleep and free time as it is.

P.S. If I accidentally got pregnant, that would be a whole different discussion. I think I’d do fine as a mom, at least as well as most moms if not better; it’s just not a job I have chosen to take on. But that doesn’t mean I know I’d be willing to have an abortion, barring knowledge of any serious health consequences to prenancy or somethig like that.

27

Well, I decided I did not want kids when I was very young, though I did end up pregnant twice, I lost both kids. Though not married at the time, I am personally pro life and pro choice [i would not have voluntarily had an abortion but I support the ability of people to make their own choices] so I was relieved to not have had the kids. I was happy to have had my tubes tied.

I would say that of our married/in relationship of long duration couples of our age and aquaintance , some 25 or so couples, about half of them have kids. For teh record we are both in the 45-50 age range, so by this time if people wanted kids, they would have had them either naturally or by adoption if it was possible, and we havent really heard anybody complaining that they desperately wanted kids but couldnt get them by hook or by crook.

We did have one couple drop our friendship [female desperately wanted kids, couldnt have them, refused to adopt and had hissy fits about other couples having kids. We are better off not knowing her but we really do miss George :frowning: ]

28

I was never super keen on having children. When I met my then-wife, she was dead-set against ever having kids. It worked out just fine.

Now, I’m in a relationship with a wonderful lady who, by pure coincidence, also has zero interest in having children. And I’ve become much more rigid in my own desire to not reproduce, to the point where I’m strongly considering a vasectomy. I think my course in life in that regard is pretty well set.

I’m 34, by the way.

29

I brought up this question at a dinner we attended with our childfree by choice social group, and one of the other members sent me a link with information at this site.

There are many linked tables towards the middle of the page, like this table of parenting statistics. From the table, as of 2000, 65% of men had a biological child, and 74% of women had.

30

So, I’d be really interested in an ‘‘ask the childfree person’’ thread, because I’m still trying to figure out whether or not I really want to have kids. I’m not sure if my desire has more to do with social pressure than an actual desire, though I definitely get warm fuzzies when I think about adoption/foster parenting.

31

My partner and I have decided not to have children. We’re in our thirties. We’ve talked it through a few times, talked about the pros and cons etc, but our decision hasn’t wavered. Neither of us has ever been interested in being a parent, before we got together or since. I think we’d be OK parents - definitely better than some - but we don’t want to.

What gets me is that people say that’s a selfish decision. I hear this a lot, from all sorts of people. Wouldn’t it be more selfish to make a whole new person just to gratify the expectation that people should reproduce?!

32

Cyril Kornbluth (IIRC) wrote “The Marching Morons” in the early 1960’s. The premise of the story is that the smarter people voluntarily limit reproduction. (And the dumb ones breed like rabbits - cue the rant about welfare babies). Over a long span of time this has to have an evolutionary result.

OTOH, in Freakonomics, in a discussion over reproduction, abortion, and crime levels Levy suggests that modern statistics point to the fact that a woman has as many children as she chooses to have. Nowadays, that seems to be less than 2 as an average. Women who get pregnant early in life (by accident) simply choose to have fewer children later in life; age at which one starts does not affect the birthrate.

I won’t say “selfish”. The choice not to have children is logical.

As I mentioned earlier, the Quebec government, concerned at the low rate of reproduction, has offered some fairly good incentives for having children, with minimal effect. This suggests that the (perceived) cost of having children, in money, lifestyle changes, effort, whatever - is very high. Depneding on who is trying to scare you and how much, the cost of each child is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lifetime.

Modern lifestyles are best enjoyed with a certain level of income. The way society is structured nowadays, the only way to achieve this for most people is as a dual-income couple. Having one or more children will severly impact that lifestyle.

The cost of a house is fairly high - I would assume it is high even adjusted for inflation, even after the recent bubble collapse. I recall when a 2-car family was something special; a 2-income family was not rare, but less common. Nowadays, 2 people work they NEED 2 cars.

The toys we “need” have also changed. Consider the big-screen TV, surround sound, DVD/BluRay player, computer(s) and internet, video-games, cell phones, cable TV, satellite radio, car stereo… and we haven’t even gotten into sports or exercise equipment. All toys that cost significantly more than 40 years ago or had no equivalent then.

A modern lifestyle takes too much money, and kids subtract from that; not to mention maternity leave’s lost wages and child care expenses. No surprise that people choose to be childless.

OTOH, most of the parents I know who have talked about having kids say they would do it all over again… unless their kids were teenagers at the time.

33

Define selfish. To a person with children, it may seem that they sacrifice a lot for another person. It’s difficult for some people to imagine that as selfish.

To a person who chooses not to have children, it may seem the pinnacle of hubris to give an overpopulated world another mouth to feed simply because you think your genes are worth passing on.

There’s obviously more than 2 possible opinions on this though. You’d probably find that most people were “ok” with someone having 2 children, but you’ll encounter more opposition to folks with 0 or 15 kids.

34

One more chiming in with “don’t have kids, don’t want kids, plan on never having kids.” I’m female, about to turn 30. It’s a very family-oriented society out there, IME, but I do meet other gals around my age who are also in the same camp as me.

I also meet women who tell me, “Oh, you’ll change your mind!” always in the most condescending voice possible. :rolleyes:

The Other Shoe and I are both only children, so I’ll never be an aunt, either - at least, not by blood. He’s veryveryvery much anti-children, and I’m just not interested in being a mom, so it works out well for us.

(If, in a parallel universe, I had wound up with a life partner who veryveryvery much *wanted *kids, I’d be willing to take adoption into consideration. No fertility problems, just don’t wanna give birth. But my partner is the wonderful Mr. Horseshoe, and he Does Not Want. And that is more than OK by me.)

35

There is an interesting report from the census bureau called the Fertility of American Women. Here is a link

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p20-558.pdf

It you look at Table 2 on page 5, it indicates, in terms of educational achievement, that the only woman that are having children above the replacement rate are woman that didn’t complete high school. Woman that graduated from college seem to have 1/3 fewer children.

Frankly, I’m not concerned about any genetic implications. I think we might be the last generation that has to accept the genes that chance hands us. I am however concerned about raising a generation of children whose educational background will be ill suited for competing in a global economy.

36

I don’t have any time for the argument that not having kids is selfish; I don’t know ANYBODY who had kids for any reason other than that they wanted them* - I don’t see how having kids because you want to have kids is not a selfish decision (not that there’s anything wrong with that; I’m just tired of people ignoring their own motivations and making judgements about mine).

*Except for people who got pregnant unexpectedly, and they wanted kids eventually, too, so it’s a wash.

37

Unless I’m mis-reading, it looks like as of 2006, 45.1% of women in childbearing years (defined as 15 to 44 years old) were childless. I’m feeling less like a freak all the time. :slight_smile: Silly advertisers/marketers - they’re completely ignoring a demographic of 45% of women, and it’s one that has disposable income and buying power.

38

Not in a relationship at present, so it’s sort of a moot point, but I can’t imagine ever wanting to have kids. I want to do really interesting things with my life - spend a few years working at nonprofits for peanuts, then maybe spend a year getting an LLM, perhaps start a nonprofit of my own, travel at the drop of a hat - and so on and so on. And I want to be able to, while I’m doing interesting things, come home and relax - grab a beer and a book and chill out.

Having kids makes that all impossible. If I had kids, I could never say in good conscience “Sure, I’ll take a $20,000/year pay cut - why not? The job is neat, and I can probably get another one when it’s done.” After all, I’d have college to pay for. Nor could I travel at the drop of a hat - someone needs to watch the kids. And coming home at the end of a long day of work wouldn’t be the end of a long day - kids need to be fed, and educated, and entertained.

Becoming a parent means that most of the choices you might once have made, you can never make again. It means that most of the time you’d once have had to yourself will now be taken up by new and complicated problems and responsibilities. It means that you can never again live only by your own lights, for your own purposes, answerable only to yourself. (Well, if you’re lucky, you might be able to after a couple decades.)

I can’t understand why anyone would want such a thing. There is so, so much I want to do with my life - and life is so very short.

39

You have confused the term “birthrate” with “fertility rate”. Of course the age that women reproduce affects the birthrate.

40

While maybe you can’t be quite as spontaneous with a family… but I can’t help wodering if either my parents were lazy and disconnected (a possibility) or modern parents are just too “hovering”.

I don’t remember my parents doing that much or spending that much time with me, and I don’t recall any other friends at the time whose parents were anywhere near constant companions. By 8 or 10 most of my recreational time was pretty much my own, and things like homework or chores were tasks I was expected to manage on my own.

Perhaps the types that want to be parents are more involved than they should be and kids need more time to themselves?be