Desire for Children Still Norm in U.S. U.S. birthrate down, but attitudes toward having children unchanged.
Byline: Frank Newport and Joy Wilke
Synopsis: Americans are as likely to have or want children as they were in recent decades, even as the U.S. birthrate has dropped over the past few years. Financial concerns top the list of reasons adults think couples don't have more children.
PRINCETON, NJ -- Despite the recent drop in the U.S. fertility rate, Americans' attitudes about having children have remained unchanged over the past 23 years. More than nine in 10 adults say they already have children, are planning to have children, or wish that they had had children. The 5% of American adults who do not want children is virtually the same as the 4% found in 1990.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that the U.S. general fertility rate reached an all-time low in 2011, at 63.2 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44. The fertility rate has dropped 11% from 1990, when there were 70.9 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44.
The finding from Gallup's Aug. 22-31 survey suggests that the changes in the U.S. birthrate in the last few decades apparently are not related to a change in Americans' underlying attitudes toward children. It may be that fewer women are having children or that women, on average, are having fewer children, but the data show that the general interest in having children has remained constant -- and high.
Younger Americans Want Children; Those With Kids Would Repeat Decision
More than half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 40 have children, and another 40% do not currently, but hope to have children someday. Only six percent of Americans aged 18 to 40 do not have, and do not want to have, children.
These views are essentially unchanged from 2003, when 94% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 40 either had children or wanted to have children someday.
Meanwhile, 86% of Americans aged 45 or older have had children, and nine in 10 of these say they would have children if they had to "do it over again." Of the 14% of Americans aged 45 and older who do not have children, 50% say that if they had to do it over again, they would have at least one child.
Combined, more than nine in 10 older Americans either have children (86%) or wish they had (7%).
Americans' Ideal Number of Children per Family Stable for Decades
Americans say the ideal number of children per family is 2.6, which is on par with what Gallup has found since the late 1970s.
Gallup has been asking Americans "What do you think is the ideal...
To continue reading
Request your trial