Reasons why more Americans are unlikely to have kids revealed
The number of childless Americans who think they are unlikely to have kids in the future has jumped 7% in two years, a new poll has revealed. The majority of them say they just don’t want children.
Some 44% of Americans aged between 18 and 49 who don’t have children believe it’s unlikely they will ever be parents, a new Pew Research Center survey found.
About 23% of childless respondents seemingly ruled out ever having children, saying it was “not at all likely” that they would become parents some day. Around 21% conceded that the chances of them having kids was “not too likely.”
The number of non-parents in the US who are reluctant to raise kids has increased by 7% since 2018. Back then, 37% of respondents said the idea of having children was not something that appealed to them.
The overwhelming majority of Americans who already have kids plan to stop at that. Some 74% of US parents younger than 50 said they were either “not too likely” or “not at all likely” to expand their families any further, according to the poll.
When asked about the reasons behind their decision not to have kids, a whopping 56% of childless respondents said they just do not wish to have any. Some 19% chalked up their apparent unwillingness to have kids to medical reasons, while a further 17% cited “financial reasons.” About 15% said they lacked a partner to start a family with, while 10% cited their age.
A further 9% invoked the “state of the world,” which is apparently too bleak to bring a child into. Some 5% pointed to environmental reasons, including climate change. Only 2% of respondents said they were not planning to have children because of their partner’s stance.
The survey, which was released earlier this week, sheds light on a worrying trend that may spell further trouble for US demographics amid a rapidly declining birth rate, largely blamed on the Covid-19 pandemic. Last year, the US birth rate fell by 4% to its lowest point since 1979, dropping for the sixth consecutive year.
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