Why Many Young Adults Are Choosing Not to Have Children

Fertility rates have been falling for decades across most developed economies and a growing number of middle-income ones. What has changed in recent surveys is the explanation: fewer people say children never happened to them by circumstance, and more say they are actively deciding against parenthood.

What the numbers show

The replacement rate needed to keep a population stable without immigration is about 2.1 children per woman, according to the Adam Smith Institute. England and Wales sit around 1.4, per the same source — well below that threshold.

South Korea illustrates how low rates can go: Statistics Korea recorded 0.72 children per woman in 2023 and 0.75 in 2024, a slight rebound from a low point but still far below replacement, Al Jazeera reported. The rate had fallen steadily from 1.24 in 2015 as more women prioritized careers over marriage and motherhood amid high housing and child-rearing costs, the same report said.

Why people are opting out

The Pew Research Center's July 2024 survey of U.S. adults, drawn from its American Trends Panel, found the single most common reason adults under 50 who say they are unlikely to have children give is that they simply do not want to — cited by 57%. Wanting to focus on other priorities such as career or personal interests followed at 44%, concern about the state of the world at 38%, inability to afford children at 36%, and environmental concerns at 26%.

Those patterns differ by gender. Pew found women under 50 were more likely than men to say they just do not want children (64% versus 50%) and more likely to cite negative experiences with their own family growing up (22% versus 13%). Men were somewhat more likely to cite world concerns and affordability than women among the over-50 group.

Among older adults (50 and up) who never had children, the leading reason was different: 39% said it simply never happened, and 33% said they never found the right partner, Pew reported — suggesting older generations' childlessness was more often circumstantial than the deliberate choice younger adults describe.

Money is a recurring theme

A MassMutual survey of 1,000 U.S. adults ages 18 to 43 without children, conducted in July 2024 and reported by CBS News, found about 23% cited financial reasons for staying childless, centered on wanting financial independence and doubting they could afford child-rearing costs. The same survey found parents with children under 18 spend an average of about $700 a month on childcare, and that raising one child from birth to age 18 costs an estimated $240,000 — a figure CBS News said had risen 20% since 2016.

Frederick Vettese, former chief actuary at Morneau Shepell, told The Globe and Mail that women's expanding education and earning power is "the most important factor" behind falling birth rates, as women increasingly weigh their own financial security against the cost of a larger family.

Why this matters for everyone else

Lower birth rates eventually mean fewer working-age taxpayers supporting more retirees. The Globe and Mail noted that pay-as-you-go systems such as U.S. Social Security, which rely on current workers funding current retirees, are particularly exposed to a shrinking younger population. The same reporting linked persistently low fertility to slower economic growth, citing Japan's experience since the 1990s as an example, and said fertility rates are projected to stay depressed for at least the next two decades in the countries studied.

Governments have responded with direct incentives. South Korea raised its 2025 family-policy budget to 19.7 trillion won (about $13.76 billion), a 22% increase from 2024, and extended paid parental leave to up to 1.5 years when both parents participate, with six months at full salary, Al Jazeera reported. The country's crude birthrate ticked up in 2024 for the first time since 2014, though officials attributed part of that to marriages delayed by the pandemic finally taking place.

Alternative responses to a shrinking workforce

Not every proposed fix targets the birth rate itself. The Adam Smith Institute argued that societies can offset fewer workers through policy and technology rather than reversing the demographic trend: shifting pensions from pay-as-you-go to funded, invested systems; using automation and robotics in elder care, an approach it said Japan is already pursuing with lifting machines and monitoring sensors; and relying more on AI-assisted innovation and less labor-intensive military technology such as drones. The institute's broader argument is that declining birth rates do not have to cause economic decline if savings, investment and technology are prioritized over borrowing.