To be sure, this is partly because women are starting their families later and thus having second children later. But even among women in their early 40s, the share of only children has barely budged in more than three decades, crawling from 17 percent in 1990 to 19 percent in 2022.
About three quarters of us think two (44 percent) or three (29 percent) children would be ideal. And the parents who have that many kids are much more likely to have the precise number of kids they think is ideal. That contrasts sharply with parents with fewer kids, who almost always think more would be ideal, and parents with four or more kids, about half of whom think the ideal family is probably smaller than theirs. Whoops.
University of Texas psychologist Toni Falbo has studied only children such as herself since the mid 1970s, when they were legitimately rare. She told us that (largely false) stereotypes have led parents to believe that having just one child amounted to “mistreating your child by not providing them with another sibling.”
But look deeper at that data and you’ll spot something wild. Women in their early 20s embraced childlessness first, with a sharp rise beginning around 2002. That happens to be when the first millennials, born in 1981, entered that age group. For women in their later 20s, the jump in childlessness happened in 2006, just as the first millennials arrived.
Instead, just about every source we consulted pointed to the broader economic climate. Hammered by the Great Recession, soaring student debt, precarious gig employment, skyrocketing home prices and the covid-19 crisis, millennials probably faced more economic headwinds in their childbearing years than any other generation. And, as sociologist Karen Benjamin Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina, told us, it put them behind on everything you’re supposed to line up before you have kids.
“We have a pretty strong set of prerequisites: You absolutely should finish school, and have a decent job, and you should make a decent income, and you should be in a good partnership, and you should live on your own,” Guzzo told us. “That takes a while to accomplish, especially in this day and age. Some people may feel like they’re never going to be in a good place.”
“Historically, one of the reasons why we think the U.S. has had such a high fertility rate compared to other countries was related to unintended and unwanted pregnancies that resulted in births,” Gemmill told us. Now that it’s easier to avoid accidental pregnancies, more women are having kids later, or not at all.
When that almost mythical perfect time to have children does arrive, some women will find they don’t have the means. “In the United States, we overestimate our ability to get pregnant later or how readily available medically assisted reproduction might be,” Guzzo said. “I mean, it is available, but it’s crazy expensive. Your average person can’t afford it. It’s often not covered by insurance.”
And a hefty 56 percent said they just didn’t want kids. (The remainder pointed to medical reasons, financial reasons and lack of a partner. The state of the world and climate change came in a distant fifth and sixth out of seven.)
We have little data to back up this speculation, but many of our sources wholeheartedly agreed. About 90 percent of kids born in 1944 outdid their parents; even negligent mothers and fathers could produce a surefire success. For kids born in 1984, that number was just 50 percent. These days, when the outlook may be even bleaker, there’s intense pressure to pump your kids up with every available ounce of organic superfood, superior schooling and extracurricular enrichment to give them a slim shot at getting ahead.
So the decision to avoid having children may amount to a kind of performance anxiety in the face of intense expectations and weak governmental and social support, Guzzo said: “If I don’t do everything right, then my kid will end up living on my couch forever or be a serial killer. … I don’t know if or when I’ll have what it takes to be a ‘good’ parent.
If your question inspires a column, we’ll send an official Department of Data button and ID card. This week, we’ll make the trek all the way across the newsroom to deliver a button to Herman Wong, The Post’s deputy general-assignment editor … or at least we would if he wasn’t out on paternity leave with his first — and so far only! — child.
This content was originally published here.
