MSU study finds number of people choosing not to have kids is growing

MID-MICHIGAN (WNEM) – The number of people choosing not to have kids has doubled over the past 20 years, according to a new study from Michigan State University.

Researchers said the choice not to have kids could continue to be more common in the future.

“We kind of have in society, expect people to want to have children, but I think that’s changing,” said Jennifer Watling Neal, MSU psychology professor and co-author of the study.

She said the research focuses on figuring out the different types of parents living across the United States.

“In most cases, when people have done research on different types of nonparents, they really haven’t done it on different types of nonparents. They sort of lumped all the people who don’t have kids into a single group of nonparents,” Neal said.

She said they looked at data collected from 80,000 adults in the U.S. under the age of 45 from 2002 to 2023.

The research found multiple types of nonparents.

“You’ve got people who are planning to have children in the future. We kind of refer to those folks as ‘not yet parents.’ They’re probably going to become parents at some point in their life. We’ve got childless people who wanted to have children but couldn’t have them either due to biological or social circumstances. And we have child-free people. So, these are people who don’t have children, and they don’t ever want to have children,” Neal explained.

She said childless parents are the least common, staying steady at 3% to 4% of the population.

The most common type of parent is the “not yet parents,” but the group in the latter is growing.

“The percentage of nonparents who don’t want to have children rose from 14% in ‘22 to 29% in 2023. And that suggests that the prevalence of child-free people in the U.S. has been growing over the last 20 years,” Neal said.

In that same period, Neal said the percentage of nonparents who plan to have children fell from 79% to 59%, a trend she sees continuing onward.

“It might be important if you’re thinking about medical services to ensure that they have access to reliable birth control and maybe even sterilization if that’s what they desire,” Neal said. “They may have very different financial needs given that they don’t have children, so they maybe need to have different financial advice than somebody who does have children and maybe wants to put aside money for heirs, right? They may need more planning for long-term care.”

This study did not explore why people are choosing not to have kids, but Neal said Pew Research Center surveys have shown medical reasons, the high cost of having kids, and restrictions on freedom or career growth as the reasons some opt out of becoming parents.

The study was published in the National Council on Family Relations’ “Journal of Marriage and Family.”

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