More US adults are opting out of parenthood, but what does growing older without kids really look like?
A growing number of adults in the US are opting out of parenthood. In 2023, 47% of adults younger than 50 said that they are unlikely to ever have kids – up 10 percentage points from 2018, according to a Pew Research Center report.
The Pew report surveyed differences between non-parents aged 50 and older, and under-50 adults who do not have kids and are unlikely to in the future. The older cohort’s top reasons for not having children were that it just didn’t happen (39%) and that they didn’t find the right partner (33%). Meanwhile, the younger cohort’s most common response was that they just don’t want kids (57%; other top responses were “wanting to focus on other things” (44%), concerns about the state of the world (38%) and not being able to afford a child (36%).
