Families of Two: the childfree a decade later

Greetings!

My book, Families of Two: Interviews with Happily Married Couples Without Children By Choice, came out around the time of the last census. It’s about ten years later and time to look at what is happening now. This blog will delve into aspects of the choice not to have children then, now, and beyond. I invite you to join the conversation!

I decided to write Families of Two (Fo2) because at the time, I went looking for a book like it, didn’t find one, so with a background in psychology and one book already under my belt, decided to research the topic myself. I interviewed over 100 couples across the United States, conducted in depth interviews with 40, and 15 were chosen for the book as the best representation of responses from all the couples.

Did I learn a lot and was the public ever interested. I have been on The Early Show, Good Morning America, have done lots of syndicated talk radio in the States and in Canada, and have been interviewed for many articles published nationally and internationally.

What was happening 10 years ago? Here’s a couple of standout statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau:

1 in 5 women did not have children across all age levels and for ages 40-44. Ten years before thaen, 1 in 10 did not have children. So in that 10 year time span the number of women who did not have children doubled.

Now, the data do not technically track not having children by choice. However, related studies indicated the reason women did not have children was for “personal reasons” rather than medical. I talked to census researchers at the time and they also pointed out that with great medical technology today, low rates of infertility and sterility, they believed that the data did largely reflect the choice factor.

At the time of the last census demographic predictions also included the number of married couples choosing not to have children will increase would go from 1 in 7 to 1 in 5 in the year 2010.

Fast forward to August 2008-data released on the internet by the U.S. Census Bureau showed no real change with women 40-44; it is still about 1 in 5 women in this age range that do not have children. This statistic is part of population surveys and does not give more detail.

What do you see happening out there? While not hard stats, here are a few things I have observed in the past several years:

• While the trend has been that women are waiting longer to have children, and I see a tendency for them to wait even longer, say even into their late forties before getting pregnant for the first time, and then having more than one. They tend to be educated and established in their careers. If a real trend, this could be interesting, as past data revealed that the more education a woman has, the fewer children she will have.
• Deciding whether to have children is a very hard decision for many women. Those who clearly know they do not want to become a parent remain in the minority. Ten years ago, data indicated that age 34 was a common cutoff—the “fish or cut bait” time when women decided to have children or not. I see this is still very much the case. Whether to have children or not is a hot topic with women in their early 30s. They are often on the ascent in their careers, may or may not be married or in a committed relationship, and are finding it a very tough decision.
• Many couples that do decide to have kids either have one, or three or more—I tend to see a bit less of the prevailing stat of about two children per woman. Trend data also has shown this tendency.

What do you see happening out there today with regards to the parenthood decision? For example, do you think more people are not having children by choice these days? Of those that are having them, when do they start having them and how many children do they have?

This is my first question to you in the “On the Ground” section of this blog. The question will change periodically, and your answers will help paint the full picture of what’s happening now. I want to hear from You!