Jennifer Watling Neal, professor of psychology at Michigan State University (MSU) and co-author of the study, “We found that 20.9% of adults in Michigan do not want children, which closely matches our earlier estimate of 21.6%, and means that over 1.6 million people in Michigan are child-free.”
Watling Neal goes on to explain that the survey sample is very similar to the entire United States and that this could be a good indication that 50-60 million Americans are childfree.
The study published in PLOS ONE replicated a study done in 2022 where they found that 21.6% of people live child-free.
In both studies, they asked individuals without children a set of three questions.
In 2022, Watling Neal said of the findings, “People - especially women - who say they don’t want children are often told they’ll change their mind, but the study found otherwise. People are making the decision to be child-free early in life, most often in their teens and twenties. And it’s not just young people claiming they don’t want children. Women who decided in their teens to be childfree are now, on average, nearly 40 and still do not have children.”
“Many adults are child-free, and there do not seem to be differences by age, education or income,” associate professor of psychology at MSU, Zachary Neal, said of the 2023 results.
“However, being child-free is somewhat more common among adults who identify as male, white or who have always been single.”
“We have found no evidence that older child-free adults experience any more life regret than older parents. In fact, older parents were slightly more likely to want to change something about their life.”
The researchers believe that child-free adults should gather more attention as reproductive rights and laws are being compromised across the country. They fear that conservative politics may be affecting adults’ choice to be child-free.
“States’ restrictions on reproductive health care may result in many people being forced to have children despite not wanting them, which is very concerning,” Neal added.
