Americans are having fewer kids—if they have them at all

Michael Stahl doesn’t understand why his parents had four kids. As the oldest child growing up in a Queens, New York, apartment where space was tight and finances tighter, he wondered if his and his siblings’ existence brought the family more stress and debt than fulfillment and joy.

“What were they thinking?” Stahl, now a 45-year-old journalist in New York City, said he has often thought. But deep down, he knows the answer: “They weren’t.”

By contrast, Stahl has spent years, even decades, thinking hard about whether to become a parent—and keeps getting stuck on the fence. Others in his generation and younger are in the same boat: According to a February 2024 Pew Research Center pollopens in new window, 30% of 18- to 34-year-olds without kids aren’t sure if they want children, and 18% say they don’t want any. That follows a rise between 2018 and 2021 in the percentage of nonparentsopens in new window under 50 who said they were “not too likely” or “not likely at all” to have kids (16% versus 21% and 21% versus 23%, respectively).

In a Reddit community called Fencesitteropens in new window, 65,000 members look for validation for their hesitation (“Am I selfish for being concerned about my health and the world?”) and counsel for their indecision (“My ex and I broke up because I decided I didn’t want kids…now I think I want one.”) Psychologists say they are hearing these deliberations in their work with patients and stepping in to help.

“This is a conversation I’ve been having quite often with both patients and people within 10 years of my age,” said Victoria Liou-Johnson, PhDopens in new window, a clinical psychologist in Hawai’i, where she is cofounder and executive director of the Hawai’i Behavioral Health Connection, a nonprofit organization founded in response to the Maui wildfires that assists with mental health support resources and education across the state. Liou-Johnson’s young patients, who are mostly Indigenous people, worry about passing down generational trauma. Her PhD students debate the best timing. Her friends in their 40s wonder if it’s too late. “That’s where the people I know become the fence-sitter asking, ‘What should I do?’” said Liou-Johnson.

For many of the undecided, it’s empowering to view parenthood as an option, not as an obligation. And indeed, some scholars point to the long-shrinking birth rateopens in new window in the United States as a reflection of increased gender equity.

Yet some experts say that many of the factors that keep fence-sitters teetering—childhood trauma, financial challenges, political and environmental fears, paltry childcare options and parental leave policies, mental illness, attacks on reproductive freedom, and more—are reflections of a troubled society. A 2023 meta-analysis, for one, found that the more concerned people were about climate change, the fewer children they wanted—if they wanted any at all (Dillarstone, H., et al., PLOS Climate, Vol. 2, No. 11, 2023opens in new window).

“It’s not a good enough reason anymore to say, ‘I’m going to have kids because that’s what everybody else is doing or that’s what my mom wants me to do,’” said Amanda Chappell, PhDopens in new window, a faculty member at Bethany College in West Virginia whose dissertation looked at the factors influencing people’s childbearing plans. “It’s not a good enough reason anymore because there’s so much at stake.”

But the longer fence-sitters—particularly women—stall, the more likely they are to age out, rather than opt out, of biological parenting altogether. As a result, some demographers, economists, and psychologists worry that, among other concerns, there won’t be enough young people to support the economy and an aging population.

“These numbers are declining; people are having fewer and fewer kids than ever before—and our world is reaching its limit of resources to even sustain the amount of people we have,” Chappell said. “Both are true.”

According to a 2020 analysis that looked at trends across 195 countries, the average number of kids a woman had dropped from 4.7 in 1950 to 2.4 in 2017. The study authors predict it will fall below 1.7 by 2100. In the United States, in particular, the birth rate has been on a steady declineopens in new window for decades, bottoming out around 2019 (Vollset, S. E., et al., The Lancet, Vol. 396, No. 10258, 2020opens in new window).

There are myriad reasons people are having fewer children. For one, traditional markers of adulthood, like moving out of your parents’ house and getting married, are hitting later, and having kids is following suit. That’s largely due to financial realities like skyrocketing mortgage rates and the loss of many middle-class jobs, which make self-sufficiency a higher bar to reach.

“We’ve extended adolescence a bit,” said Adam Duberstein, PsyDopens in new window, a clinical psychologist who sees patients at two clinics outside of Detroit. “I get the sense, too, that some people are OK with delaying the decision [because of] assisted reproductive technology.” Women are also less likely now to feel like mothering is their default life path than in generations past. “We do have choices now, and we need to make the right choices for us,” Duberstein said.

Another reason for parental reluctance is climate change fears. One study found that 39% of young people globally feel hesitant to have children because of climate concerns (Hickman, C., et al., The Lancet Planetary Health, Vol. 5, No. 12, 2021opens in new window).

“People are thinking about: What are the implications of me having a child on the environment? Can I justify bringing a child into a world that is so turbulent, that is so messed up, that is so unsettled?” said Julie Bindeman, PsyDopens in new window, a reproductive psychologist in Rockville, Maryland, who counsels patients with a range of reproductive challenges and life transitions.

At the same time, becoming a parent can help quell those concerns in some cases, said Toni Falbo, PhD, a professor in the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Educational Psychology who studies sibling effects and only children. “One way to get invested in the future and become more hopeful is to have a child,” she said. “Fighting for some young person’s life is very motivating, and then these young people take up their own positions and try to advocate for their own future.”

Indeed, 2021 research in the journal Population and Environment found that “perspectives of doom and hope emerged simultaneously” when looking at how climate change-related concerns influenced reproductive attitudes (Helm, S., et al., Vol. 43, 2021opens in new window).

But in the United States, the threat to reproductive rights further complicates people’s plans, or lack thereof, to have children, Duberstein has found in his practice. One patient who had decided, along with his wife, to remain child-free, for instance, was “completely panicked” the week Roe v. Wade was overturned. “He said, ‘What do I do if we accidentally get pregnant? It’s going to be a nightmare for me, but it’s going to be even worse for her.’”

While some people are finding ways to get abortions despite restricted access, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that about half of pregnancies in the United Statesopens in new window are unplanned.

“It’s a luxury in some ways to be able to make a decision,” Falbo said. The same could be said for the 20% of Americans who want to become parents but are facing infertilityopens in new window, according to other CDC data.

“Some younger individuals might make the choice to have families later, but when that’s taken from them because of other life circumstances, that’s really challenging to process,” said Anastasia Canell, PhDopens in new window, a postdoctoral fellow in clinical geropsychology in a long-term care facility.

Many fence-sitters also cite a lack of societal, workplace, and financial support for parents, especially mothers, in the United States. The Pew Research reportopens in new window found that 17% of childless adults under 50 said they probably wouldn’t have kids for financial reasons. The country has no paid parental leave policy and sparse and expensive childcare options yet still expects more from women than men at home.

A 2023 literature review looking at mostly middle-class Americans and Europeans found that women perform the majority of “mental labor,” especially when it comes to childcare and parenting decisions. Women also experience more related negative consequences, like stress, lower life and relationship satisfaction, and career disadvantages (Reich-Stiebert, N., et al., Sex Roles, Vol. 88, No. 11–12, 2023opens in new window).

At the same time, Chappell’s dissertation found that 34- to 40-year-old childless men were more likely than childless women their age to intend to have children and have positive feelings about it, perhaps because they tend to receive more of the rewards and fewer of the responsibilities, she hypothesized. Men’s biological capability to sit on the fence much longer may play a role, too.

“If we do want people to have more children, how can we make parenthood a benefit rather than this huge strain?” Chappell asked.

Despite very real social and political concerns that influence people’s childbearing choices, the decision is more often deeply personal, finds Rebecca Lesser Allen, PsyD,opens in new window a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles who works with new mothers and other people going through big life transitions.

For example, in her clinical work, most people’s questioning comes from “painful or conflicted” feelings about their own childhood or relationship with their parents. This tracks with research on parental regret, which finds that parents who regret having kids tend to have a higher level of adverse childhood experiences, among other commonalities like experiencing parental burnout (Piotrowski, K., PLOS ONE, Vol. 16, No. 7, 2021opens in new window).

“When you had a painful childhood, the idea of raising your own children without having a model for how to do that, being worried that your child’s going to have difficulties like you did, or that you’re going to struggle with parenting like your parents did, or [that you’ll pass on] mental health issues or addictions that run in families, those types of things can be very, very scary,” Lesser Allen said.

Those fears are familiar to Shannon, a 30-something startup employee in New York City who was on the fence throughout her 20s. She didn’t want to replicate the Evangelical Christian upbringing she experienced in California or risk grappling with some of the mental illnesses that were common among mothers in her family. It took years of therapy, coming out as bisexual, and even estrangement from her family to decide to pursue parenting—in her own way. That means, among other choices, she has her twin toddler girls call her the gender-neutral term “zaza” instead of “mama,” a concept she came across reading trans novels.

“I want to be a parent, but I don’t want to be a mother because motherhood is this all-consuming thing where you don’t get to have all your other identities,” Shannon said.

Another common fear among partnered fence-sitters is that the dynamics of their relationship will change, Lesser Allen said. Typically, they’re right. Research has shown that while relationship satisfaction tends to decline for everyone in the first 10 years of partnership, parents are less satisfied than nonparentsopens in new window. And moms in particular feel the strain, with just 38% of married moms reporting high relationship satisfaction compared with 62% of married women with no kids.

Adrian, a 40-something marketing professional in Seattle, witnessed this tension in her family growing up. “My parents have always had a tumultuous relationship and fought a lot and struggled a lot, especially around money issues,” she remembered. “I’m sure my aunts and uncles without kids [fought too], but it just seemed like they all had better, closer, healthier, less stressful relationships than my parents did.” After considering both sides of the fence for years, Adrian and her husband decided to remain child-free for good in 2021.

“For some people, there’s a clear right and wrong, but for a lot of people in the middle, either one is going to be fine,” she said. “And I think that’s comforting.”

But the middle may not be so comforting for people with partners on the opposite side of the fence. Liou-Johnson has talked with friends and patients alike who did not want children but had them because of their spouse’s desire. That tension can be complicated further if the children aren’t what either spouse imagined, like in the case of serious developmental disabilities.

“There’s difficulty when the fantasized life of being parents is very, very different from reality,” Liou-Johnson said.

Single and queer people face more stigma and other legal, financial, and practical challenges when it comes to the decision to parent or not, though more research is needed in these populations. One 2020 study in Frontiers in Psychology (Gato, J., et al., Vol. 11, 2020opens in new window) found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people were less likely to intend to become parents than their heterosexual peers, and those who did want kids wanted fewer than their straight counterparts. However, those with better relationships with their parents, more close friends, and greater expectations for relationship permanence predicted a greater likelihood of parenting intentions—regardless of sexual orientation.

“People are realizing that there is no right way to have a family. If your family is you and your partner and your two cats, then that’s a family. It doesn’t have to be complete by having a biological child,” Chappell said. “So, the definition of ‘family’ is changing; it’s getting more inclusive.”

Child-rearing can also feel overwhelming for people who have already taken on caregiving roles, either as a parental figure to younger siblings or as the caretaker to aging parents. One post in a Facebook group for the latter resonates with Canell, who works with and studies young caretakers:

“All my life I wanted to have kids, but caregiving for both of my parents from an early age…and increasingly resenting it so much has really made me reconsider,” the post said. “I feel like so much of my life has been parenting my parents, I don’t want to parent anyone else…and I don’t want to do to my kids what my parents did to me. But then I worry: Who will take care of me when I’m old?”

And yet for Canell, who was a young caretaker of her grandparents, the experience had the opposite effect, informing her career path and her desire for kids of her own. “Some folks are thrown into caregiving and find a passion in it,” she said.

The reality, Lesser Allen said, is that it’s perfectly normal to harbor a range of feelings about potential—and actual—parenthood.

“People think if they have any sort of conflict, it’s really bad; that [becoming a parent] is something that they should just want to do and be so excited about and be skipping through a meadow, pregnant, feeling amazing,” she said. “It’s important to be able to grasp the concept that [parenting] can be terrifying and lonely and hard and scary and beautiful and fulfilling and wonderful. Those things don’t cancel each other out.”

But they can make the decision daunting—even if it’s one you’ve made before, Alexis Franzese, PhDopens in new window, chair of the department of sociology and anthropology at Elon University, has found in her work on “family completionopens in new window.” She and colleagues’ qualitative research has found that figuring out whether you’re “done” having kids, whether by choice or circumstance, can come with frustration, sadness, loss, and conflict with partners who disagree. It can also come with a sense of peace and relief (Mitchell Armstrong, E., et al. [Eds.], Advances in Medical Sociology: Vol. 20, Reproduction, Health, and Medicineopens in new window, Emerald Publishing, 2022).

“People think if you’re already invested in this whole parenting journey, what’s another?” But for many parents, she’s found deciding whether to have more kids is an extensive process.

To guide patients toward a choice about trying (or not) to have their first, next, or last child, psychologists offer a range of strategies.

Lesser Allen helps them develop the self-awareness to question where their feelings come from. “For example, if your belief system is such that you think moms are totally selfless and never angry, no wonder it seems terrifying,” she said.

Bindeman, meanwhile, might ask patients to project 1 year, then 5, 10, and 20 years into the future both as parents and as child-free adults. “What would that look like and what might you regret?” she asks. While both paths can come with some grief and regret, research suggests that most people wind up content—no matter which side of the fence they pursue.

For example, in a 2023 study, Michigan State University psychologists found that about 1 in 5 adults in the state is child-free by choice—a decision most made in their teens and 20s and stuck to (PLOS ONE, Vol. 18, No. 4, 2023opens in new window). “[W]e found no evidence that older child-free adults experience any more life regret than older parents,” Jennifer Watling Neal, PhDopens in new window, a professor of psychology at Michigan State University and study coauthor, said in a statement. “In fact, older parents were slightly more likely to want to change something about their life.”

Indeed, researchers estimateopens in new window that in developed countries, 5%-14% of parents say that if they could turn back time, they would choose to be child-free.

Bindeman also helps people who don’t have kids, via circumstance or choice, to consider how they might fulfill renowned American psychoanalyst Erik Erikson’s seventh stage of development: generativity versus stagnationopens in new window. “Literally, the idea of creating a child checks that box [of generativity], but so can the things that we create otherwise, whether that’s art or writing or music or what we give our friends or community,” she said.

Similarly, Duberstein focuses on helping people clarify their values and explore how various paths can fulfill them. “I want people to know that they can be a positive force and influence in the world, whether they have children or not,” he said. “Having children is not a guarantee of anything, and not having them is not a guarantee of anything.”

Falbo’s rallying cry is that there’s an option between having kids and having none: having one. Her work over many decadesopens in new window has shown that, despite stigma, “only children” don’t differ much in significant, negative ways from kids with siblings. Most surprising, she thinks, is that they’re no less lonely.

“From my perspective, if some of these people who are sitting on the fence could find their way to one [child], it might help save humanity,” said Falbo, an only child whose daughter and granddaughter are only children as well.

For Stahl, the New York journalist, only time will tell which side of the fence he lands on. Now single, he likes the idea of creating a lifelong bond with someone he loves but worries about financial stability and being an older dad.

“I see so many positives, but I see a lot of potential hardship as well,” he said. “It would serve me better to just be present and see where life takes me. And then this might not even be a decision I have to make at all.”