Paywall removed: https://archive.is/anyBg
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.
I think this reason doesn’t get enough attention. I am childless, and there are a lot of complex reasons why that is, but I think I would have been much more likely to try to have kids if I had been able to find a woman I really wanted to have kids with. Of all the women I’ve been with, only one was someone I would want to have kids with, but she couldn’t have kids.