Posted on 10/25/2003 5:17:57 PM PDT by NYer
WASHINGTON -- Anne Hare and her husband made a momentous decision three years ago: They would not have children. It's not that they don't like kids, she says. They simply don't want to alter the lifestyle they enjoy.
"With kids, especially young kids, infants and toddlers, you really can't do the active stuff we like to do," said Hare, 43, a fitness program coordinator from Gainesville, Ga.
Hare is among 26.7 million women aged 15 to 44 who are childless, a record number, according to new Census Bureau data from a June 2002 survey. They represent nearly 44 percent of women in that age group.
The number of women 15 to 44 forgoing or putting off motherhood has grown nearly 10 percent since 1990, when roughly 24.3 million were in that class.
Direct comparisons before 1990 are not possible because the bureau didn't track women younger than 18 until then.
The latest numbers reflect the well-established trend of more women going to college and entering the work force, then delaying motherhood or deciding not to have children. More also are choosing adoption, said Martha Farnsworth Riche, a demographer and former head of the Census Bureau. %%endsource%%
'WE DON'T HATE KIDS'
Hare said she and other childless friends often are incorrectly tagged as "kid-haters."
"It's just difficult to explain to people that we don't hate kids, it's just that we don't want our own," she said.
The percentage of women 40 to 44 -- those at the end of their childbearing years -- who have not given birth has hovered around 18 percent since 1994, but that's up from 10 percent in 1976.
Non-high school graduates and those with bachelor's degrees were most likely to be childless. Also women with higher incomes had the highest childless rates, in part a reflection of the increased professional options available to them, said David Popenoe, co-director of the National Marriage Project, a research group at Rutgers University.
Amy Caizza, study director for the Institute for Women's Policy Research, a Washington think tank, said society's attitudes about childless women also have changed.
"Economic reasons are part of it, but it's also the effect of the women's movement, that you don't have to be a mother to be a complete woman," she said.
ETHNIC BREAKDOWN
Just over half of Asian women were childless, the highest rate among race and ethnic groups. It was 46 percent for non-Hispanic whites, 39 percent for blacks and 36 percent for Hispanics.
Last year about 33 percent of all births were to unmarried women, roughly the same rate since 1998, said Census Bureau demographer Barbara Downs. Blacks were more likely than Hispanics or whites to have out-of-wedlock births.
Roughly 23 percent of the 25.8 million never-married women 15 to 44 were mothers in 2002, about the same rate from 1998 but up from 18 percent of the 20.7 million never-married women in 1990. There was a pronounced increase among never-married women in managerial or professional jobs who were mothers -- the percentage has nearly doubled from 9 percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2002.
Many women in these occupations can earn salaries that enable them to raise a child on their own if they choose, Riche said.
"In earlier days, you had stigma and economic reasons" for these unmarried, professional women not to have kids, she said. "It's much less so now."
Also, about 8 percent of births were to women in unmarried partnerships, the first time the bureau had tracked such a category in the survey.
The report also showed a birth rate of 61 births per 1,000 women 15 to 44 in 2002, down from 67 per 1,000 in 1990. During the same period, it also found the birth rate for women 15 to 19 rose from 40 per 1,000 to 56 per 1,000.
That's far different from National Center for Health Statistics data, which in 2001 showed the birth rate for 15- to 19-year-olds at 45 per 1,000, declining steadily since 1990 from 60 per 1,000.
Government researchers, academics and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, an advocacy group, said they considered NCHS birth data more accurate because it is based on official vital records from hospitals.
The census report was based on a survey of 50,000 homes.
Yeah, it's spelled "F-E-M-I-N-I-S-M."
Wrong. Many times a woman doesn't have a choice in the matter, whether or not she can have kids.
That goes for not chosing to have kids, if she is not married.
I would hesitate to resort to thoughtless name calling and lumping those who might not have a choice of children readily available to them before lumping them in a catagory of selfish feminazis from a stupid poll or study.
You know, this story is almost like a push poll. It makes it seem like there are SO many women who are deciding to remain childless that it MUST be the thing for the bright upcoming woman to do. It's almost like those who commissioned this poll want this to come true! I'd like to see those figures broken down, however, to more precise age ranges, getting the more accurate percentages.
For example, the group of women is from 15-44. Just how many women from ages 15-25 are having children now anyway. I suspect the number is not that great, and a large number of women in that age range are either in high school, or just getting out of college. They are not planning families. On the other hand, the women from 25-44 are probably starting to hear that biological clock ticking and may still be holding having a child out as a possibility.
It would be interesting to see a further breakdown of the statistics. Sure the first woman mentioned in the story is a terminal adolescent, but they're not all that way.
All these scenarios are statistically VERY VERY likely. And it appears many kids today are in one of them.
And I have yet to see anyone justify reproduction as "selfless." Some people just want to do it.
But then I think, "what kind of parent would she be?" She is selfish. I really don't think her values ought to be passed along to another generation.
As judgmental as it may be, I automatically think such women are not ones I'd have much in common with or want to, for that matter.
Lonely old women will demand that our federal and state governments take care of them and their cats until death.
It's nature's self-correction in action. The religious are the ones having the bigger families, and the self-centered ones are not reproducing their DNA.
Many of these fools will have decades of bitter solitude in which to rue their selfishness.
Have we really fallen so far that we have the right to stand and judge someone else's personal decision not to have a child? What right do you have to do so? Do you know what factors have contributed to the decisions?
You know, I'm here to tell you that it isn't just women that choose not to have kids that are "lonely old women". There are plenty of lonely old women whose kids left and moved away. What about those who are estranged from their children? What about the ones who had children and then abused them so badly that the children left and never looked back? I suppose these women were not selfish, since they did have sex and get pregnant. Am I right here?
I thought that conservativism was about allowing people to have personal choices. This is not conservativism. This is an arrogant, shameful attitude, and it makes me sick.
So you think people who have no desire to have kids ought to have them anyway?
We've got plenty of children in foster homes who've been neglected by parents who didn't want them.
You just argue to argue, narses.
I see a lot of women that have kids for the same reason as getting a new purse. It is a neat accessory.
I am deeply saddened (Wow! I sound like Daschle!) when a woman pops out her kid, and as soon as that 6 weeks is up, she dashes back to her job, dropping the infant off in daycare somewhere.
I shudder to think what would have happenned to my daughter if my wife decided to keep working outside the home. My daughter has autism, and I'm sure daycare would have left her in the corner, because she would have caused no problems there, just lining her toys up in a row. My wife always engaged my daughter in things, and while she still has issues, she can somewhat function and relate to people.
Sadly, most of those abused kids were 'planned.' However, they were planned for the wrong reasons and when things didn't go as planned --- well, the kids gets the brunt of it. Kids should be accepted and loved just because they are there. In that way they learn unconditional love, the kind parents expect when they are old.
So, let's be specific here. You think that every woman must have a child?
What a silly non-sequitur, even for you, narses.
Forcing people who don't want children to have them is as ridiculous as forbidding people to have children.
God also gave people free will. They'll have to take their lumps with Him; I'm just thinking of the poor kid who's born to parents who don't want him because NARSES thinks they ought to have kids.
As I said, you're a silly contrarian.
You're sidestepping the question. I asked a specific question. What is your solution?
What you're advocating is forcing women to have children, so far as I can see. If you aren't, please explain to me in detail your solution.
It sucks. Please pardon my frankness. Had Roe v. Wade been the law of the land in the forty years ago, this space would be blank.
Oh, and as a side-note, take a look at this.
Yeah, that surprized me too. Anyways, our current immigration laws let in 57,000 more immigrants each week, so forget about this meaning that there will be no more traffic jams, there will be plenty of overpopulation of the United States, since we are one of the fastest growing populations in the world now, in spite of american born women being under zero population growth since 1970.
No one even trys to talk about zero population growth anymore, no hope for that anymore.
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