Childless By Choice - A Growing Trend for Women Age 40-44
Tuesday August 19, 2008
According to a US Census report released yesterday, 1 out of every 5 women age 40-44 is childless. That's 20% of that age group, and it's a figure that's doubled from a generation ago.
Janet Kornblum at USA Today has additional information on why more and more women are opting not to have children, or are delaying motherhood until much later in life. For childless professional women who feel pressured by a society that still sees 'married with children' as the default for females, the following factoid from the article should be of interest:
The declining birth rate for older women "shows that patterns of family formation have obviously changed," says Carl Haub, a demographer at the non-governmental Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C. "There are significant numbers of women in the U.S. who would choose a career over having a child — married or unmarried."
Comments
As part of my research for the Childess by Choice project I surveyed 171 voluntarily childless persons in North America. For the women and men respondents,less than half strongly identified with the statement “My lifestyle/career is incompatible with parenthood.”
What were the most compelling motives for these respondents?
Marital satisfaction, or satisfaction with “our life, our relationship, as it is” was a compelling motive for survey respondents. Over 80 percent of the survey respondents rated this motive statement 4 or 5 on a scale from 0 to 5.
“I value freedom and independence” was the second most compelling motive for the group and a whopping 100 percent of the 20 to 29 year-old respondents gave it a rating of 4 or 5.
“I don’t want to take on the responsibility of raising a child” was the third most compelling motive statement for the group. A large majority (82 percent) of the men rated it a 4 or 5, compared to 70 percent of the women.
“I have no desire for a child, no maternal/paternal instinct” was rated a 4 or a 5 by 75 percent of the female respondents and 64 percent of the men.
I believe it is a leftover assumption to assume we simply choose between career and children. When you have never had the desire for a child, when you are happy with what you have now, the career is simply a convenient excuse in a society that demands one for opting out of what is considered a right of passage. However it appears not to be a primary motive for the majority of those I’ve surveyed.