Posted on 06/25/2010 2:22:57 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
A new study from the Pew Research Center shows that childlessness is at a record high in America. One in five women aged 40 to 44 reported that they've never had children. Meanwhile, just 41 percent of Americans say having children is necessary to a good marriage, compared to 65 percent in 1990.
The study suggests that the two trends may well arise form relaxed social pressure about having kids.
In a striking shift, women with advanced degrees are bucking the no-babies trend, with a higher percentage of them having children than in years past. Though childlessness as a whole is still highest among women with advanced degrees, rates of childlessness among women with masters' degrees decreased by 17 percent since 1994. It also declined by 32 percent for women with professional and doctorate degrees over the same period. Nine percent of all women held advanced degrees in 2008.
Meanwhile, the rate of childlessness has increased most sharply among the least educated women. The likelihood that a woman without a high school diploma will be childless after 40 has increased 66 percent since 1994. Though white women are most likely to be childless, rates of childlessness among Hispanics and blacks have increased by 30 percent since 1994, compared to only 11 percent for white women.
"Scholars say that social pressure to bear children appears to have diminished for women and that today, the decision to have a child is seen as an individual choice," Pew researchers Gretchen Livingston and D'Vera Cohn write. "Improved opportunities and contraceptive methods help create alternatives for women."
The study dismisses the increasing popularity of in-vitro fertility treatments for the over-40 set and assumes that women aged 40 to 44 who have not had a child will never have one.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I betcha the US is the lead adopter nation tho too..
: (
How many of them have had children and aborted them?
Let’s not go there, Skippy. :-)
“...the decision to have a child is seen as an individual choice...”
That’s an odd statement. Wasn’t it always the choice of the individual?
“One in five women aged 40 to 44 reported that they’ve never had children”
You see one in five women - who in the world would want to have sex with them — let alone force some child to have that as a mother.
“One in five women aged 40 to 44 reported that they’ve never had children”
how many of them aborted?
Never wanted to, never had a “close call”, too old to start now.
How do you think I can afford all the trips I go on?
:-)
We’ve been married 24 years and have never had any kids.
Wow quite a lot of insults towatds those who have decided not to have kids. You can keep from becoming pregnant without using abortion and I am not ugly so knock it off.
Hey, watch it. Some of us are just picky. If the attraction isn't there, it's not there.
Jeez....this poll/study/accounting - whatever must have been amongst real Americans. It certainly couldn’t have included the illegal anchor-baby brood mares and heifers that have invaded this country. I see scores of them every day pushing their golden goose along in a baby carriage every day.....
How many of them have had children and aborted them?
*********************
Exactly.
This culture has soured. It is dying.
Are they sex-crazed? ;-)
Cheers!
Then the only people around will be those who are genetically predispositioned to want babies...
...soon followed by one heck of a baby BOOM!
Who can afford them? We have an economy that worships at the altar of 70 hr. workweeks.
The U.S. is going to be a 3rd world country...sooner than we think.
I wonder what the rate is for hispanic and musltim immigrants.
I wonder what the rate is for hispanic and muslim immigrants.
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