This really is no surprise:
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.”
I’m 26, and I definitely want to have children, but I will wait until I get all the selfishness out of my system. And does anyone know where I can find a really good man?
