A new study shows that over one in five Michigan adults don't want kids.
About 1.7 million people in Michigan do not want to have children. The population of Michigan's nine largest cities is less than that of the study.
Three questions were used to identify childfree individuals who were not related to parents or other types of non parents.
The State of the State Survey was conducted by the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at the University of Michigan. Neal says that this study is one of the first to count childfree adults because of the difficulty in distinguishing different types of non parents.
The study found that people who said they didn't want children were not told to change their minds.
Most people make the decision to be childfree in their teens and twenties. People of all ages claim they don't want children. The average age of women who decided in their teens to be childfree is nearly 40.
Michigan is demographically similar to the United States as a whole, even though the study was done there. 50 to 60 million Americans could be childfree if the pattern holds up nationwide.
According to Watling Neal, a large number of Americans are at risk of being forced to have children even though they don't want them. Many young women who have decided to be childfree may have difficulty avoiding pregnancies if more precedents are overturned.
The researchers say that this group deserves more attention because of their childfree status. They hope that future work will help the public understand why people choose to be childfree and what happens when they do.
The source is Michigan State University.
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