Study Finds 22 Percent of Michigan Adults Do Not Want Children

More than 20 percent of adults in Michigan, and nearly 25 percent of men in the state, do not want to have children, according to a study.

The study, conducted by Michigan State University associate psychology professors Zachary P. Neal and Jennifer Watling Neal, was published by Nature.com on July 25 and examines different desires among adults when it comes to having children.

Participants were divided into six groups: “parents,” who have children, whether they are biological, step, or adopted; “not-yet-parents” who plan to have children; “undecided” folks, which includes those who are unsure if they want children; “childfree” individuals, who do not desire children; “childless” people, who do not plan on having children but wish they did or could have; and “ambivalent” folks who do not plan on having children and are undecided as to whether they wish they did or could have had children.

The study found that 49.62 percent of adult Michiganders are parents, making up the largest population, while 21.64 percent of participants were classified as childfree. Responses from men and women differed among these two demographics, with only 44.4 percent of men reporting themselves as parents, as opposed to 54.86 percent of women. Moreover, nearly a quarter of men (24.86 percent) do not want children, versus the 17.99 percent of women who decided against becoming parents. Among the total number of respondents, just 9.58 percent said they were not yet parents, but wanted to have children in the future. Another 5.72 percent said they do not plan on having children but wish they did or could have, and 3.55 percent were “ambivalent.” Neal and Neal noted:

These prevalence estimates are consistent with one recent estimate (27%) obtained using desire-based measures¹³, but are substantially higher than past estimates (2.2–9%) obtained using fertility-based measures^33,35,36. There are multiple possible explanations for this discrepancy, including that past estimates systematically undercounted childfree adults by excluding infertile adults who did not want children, and that the prevalence of childfree adults has grown over time. In either case, our findings suggest that a large proportion of the adult population do not have children and do not want them.

The study also gauged the age at which those who do not want children made their decisions, finding that the vast majority decided in their teens (34.04 percent) and 20s (31.84 percent). Another 17.14 percent of the voluntarily childless population settled on not having children in their 30s, as did 6.46 percent in their 40s. Just 3.6 percent did so while younger than ten years old.

Nearly seven percent of the “childfree” population decided they did not want children once they reached the age of fifty or older, but that subgroup was overwhelmingly driven by men. Interestingly, more men in the 50 and older demographic settled against having children than men in their 40s, while the 50 and older demographic was the smallest subgroup among “childfree” women. The difference between men and women in the 50+ population could very well be linked to fertility and viability differences between men and women, though the study does not make that correlation. Neal and Neal noted:

Our analysis of age-to-decision suggests that the majority of childfree adults report that they are early articulators who decided in their teens or twenties that they did not want children, rather than postponers who decided that they did not want children much later in life. This represents a shift in decision-making from the 1970s when only one-third of childfree adults were estimated to be early articulators.

The study sampled 1,500 adults in Michigan, which included an oversample of 500 parents.