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First US Census Bureau Report on Growing Childless Older Adult Population
- huibf 5y agoDon't worry guys. Mohammed and José will have those children for ya.
- cyberlurker 5y agoNot surprised by this: >” Childless adults as a group were more educated than parents.” A little surprised by this: >”Poverty rates are higher among childless older adults than they are among older parents.”
- shakow 5y ago> A little surprised by this It seems to me that not birthing children when one is not financially safe makes sense; having children is, in some ways, a luxury now that a two-incomes household is the norm.
- hn8788 5y agoIt makes sense, but people have always had kids that they couldn't afford. The statistic matches up with what I've experienced at work and with friends, where older people without children aren't as concerned with being responsible with their money because nobody depends on them for support, while the older people with kids are much more diligent about monitoring the amount of money they spend.
- klipt 5y agoPoor people with kids also qualify for a lot more government benefits than poor people without kids. Although a lot of those benefits punish the parents for being married, i.e. if you want to maximize benefits it's better to be unmarried and maybe also not living together.
- dcolkitt 5y agoAdult children of senior citizens can help with light care that might otherwise require very expensive home health aids or senior care facilities.
- dec0dedab0de 5y agoI don't think it's that surprising. I know that If I didn't have a kid I definitely wouldn't have focused as much on getting raises over the years. If no one depended on me, I would have quit a few jobs for petty reasons, or even just because I wanted a break for a few months.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rchaud 5y agoSeems to me like they did the math when they were younger. If they were below the poverty line as young adults, having children would have pushed them down further.
- iammisc 5y ago> Poverty rates are higher among childless older adults than they are among older parent Not surprising... Children won't let their parents become destitute
- neutronicus 5y agoI see a lot of older homeless around, and they don't seem to have children in tow. You may be confusing "in poverty" with merely "poor."
- klipt 5y agoWomen with children are highly prioritized for housing assistance. That's why most homeless are men without children.
- newbamboo 5y agoTo say nothing of regionally adjusted poverty rates. The Bay Area is filled with highly educated who live as paupers compared to those in less expensive housing markets. Economic insecurity is known to be the cause of declining birth rates. We are increasingly urban and educated population. One can sort of “do the math.” Hard to raise a family paying $3200 a month to rent a small studio in the “trendyloin.”
- scarecrowbob 5y agoI'm 43 and have children who are 23 and 20. Having had kids really early in life forced me into taking steadier work than I might otherwise have. While I am grateful for that-- it's both easier to make money by programing computers than by playing music as well as all the goodness of having adult children-- it certainly pushed me into different situations. I have a lot of friends in their late 20s and early 30s and they are in situations where they are, say, climbing rocks for 6 months at a time before settling briefly in a place. It's likely that they are going to have a much different professional situation when they are my age. That seems to be the case with the 50-year-old former ski bums I know, at least.
- toast0 5y agoI suspect this has a lot to do with it. If having kids got you on the steady job train, and you stick with it after they leave (at 55+, I assume most children are at least not counted in household size for poverty income levels), then continuing the job when they leave will probably have you above poverty income. Not in response to your post, but on the general topic, there is a persistent issue in US statistics of using income levels to declare wealthiness. To me, having poverty level income only implies poverty if the person also has no savings. If the person has a lot of savings/investments and can retire and live off return of capital from 55-70, that may look like 15+ years of poverty in an older adult to statisticians looking at income number, but could be a very nice early retirement. Income is an easy number to get, because of mandatory reporting in dollars, but a single annual value doesn't tell a complete story.
- scarecrowbob 5y agoI agree that income is far from wealth. I make a good income doing what I do, but I have a six-figure student loan (which largely went to raising my step daughter and son). I don't expect any sympathy for that. Nor do I expect sympathy for living in small town with a crazy real-estate market. But between those, it's likely I'll never retire and will die in debt. But hey, I do plan to take up paragliding and climbing bigger mountains, so whatever. I guess. But hey, I also funnel a lot of cash to my kiddo who is getting all-As and is a Junior in a well-respected Mechanical Engineering program. These are generational problems. I suspect that regardless of how you slice it, that fact about student loans (or lack of professional options for unsettled late-millenials) and real-estate is closer to the truth for most of the people I know who didn't settle down in their 20s and have kids. My climbing partner, who just got priced out of this town, might look like he's living in poverty, as he's living in a car. But it's a lexus and he's climbing rocks full time... so maybe he's just "retired" temporarilly. Who knows. I can't tell the difference between hobos and kings anymore.
- MandieD 5y agoCombined with the higher education levels of the childless older adults, that’s even more surprising at first glance. But after a bit more thought, having someone 20-40 years younger than you who feels a strong obligation to you when you’re not quite as sharp as you used to be could make a lot of difference in your finances.
- BitwiseFool 5y agoThis hits really close to home. Everyone in my close friend group (5-8 people) and their spouses are all childless, for various different reasons. I've never been good at romance or relationships, so I feel the clock ticking as well. I really don't know how much of this can be attributed to modernity or personality. A man not having children is apparently the norm throughout human history. I do find it fascinating, though, that if I do not have children, I will be the end of a direct line that stretches back four billion years to the dawn of life itself. And, I will be the first in this direct line of descent NOT to have a son. It's simple, but amazing, to realize that I am the son of a father, his father, his father, ... etc all the way back to when sexual reproduction began.
- RC_ITR 5y ago> And, I will be the first in this direct line of descent NOT to have a son. Why focus on just the male side?
- shakow 5y agoBecause he is talking about the male lineage.
- RC_ITR 5y agoReiterating without adding detail
- lftl 5y agoHe's talking about tracing your male lineage. So if you just follow the male side of your family tree -- your father, his father, his father, his father, etc. Everyone one of these men by definition had a son.
- RC_ITR 5y agoSure, and every parent had a child. Just weird to gender it.
- _red 5y agoOne issue is that the childless will wind up requiring more state care as they age (since they won't have family to care for them). A possible solution would be to slightly increase taxes on childless to make up for that difference.
- InsaneOstrich 5y agoChildless people already pay more taxes since they don't have dependents to claim
- dcolkitt 5y agoChild tax deductions don’t even come close to canceling out the lost revenue of a potential future taxpayer over their lifetime. Especially given today’s near zero interest rate environment. Look at it this way, properly incentivizing children would mean that the average couple with two kids would pay zero net taxes over their life. With zero rates a non taxpayer who reproduces at replacement has the same equivalent fiscal value as a childless full taxpayer.
- bee_rider 5y agoHelping to support people who have children is a pretty popular policy I think. People like public schools, right? Let's just do that, but more. Punishing people for not having kids is obviously ridiculous.
- sokoloff 5y agoBut I (happening to have two kids) consume government services now in addition to creating the linked supply and demand for government services that my kids represent. It doesn’t seem like “promising my kids will pick up the tab at replacement rate” is enough to be stable.
- dcolkitt 5y agoHmm... That's a fair point. The wrinkle is not all government services scale linearly with users. For example, if there were twice as many Americans we probably wouldn't need twice the defense budget.
- vmception 5y agoChildfree
- neogodless 5y ago> The report refers to childless adults as those who have no biological children > Childfree is the term used generally for those who have chosen not to have kids while Childless is for those who would love them but can’t have them. [0] This survey didn't ask if people chose to not have children. It merely asked if they didn't have biological children. The term "childfree" isn't accurate in this usage. [0] https://womensagenda.com.au/life/why-terms-like-childless-vs-childfree-matter/ https://womensagenda.com.au/life/why-terms-like-childless-vs...
- vmception 5y agoThe report isn't using the Australian English definition that you sourced The report is drawing no distinction, while you are saying both terms are a subset of “adults with no children”. Just helping you notice that, since you made a distinction the the US Federal Government is not making a distinction on in an attempt to correct me
- neogodless 5y agoThe report isn't defining "childfree." It's defining "childless" as "adults with no children." It's not even remotely talking about why these adults do not have children. This has nothing to do with Australia[0]. But by trying to say all childless adults are "childfree", you're basically ignoring infertility, which I think is inconsiderate, at best. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_childlessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_childlessness
- vmception 5y ago> But by trying to say all childless adults are “childfree” I didn't try to say that at all You did though, which is interesting The point about talking about your source is the your entire response seemed haphazard and creating contexts that neither I or the report said, contexts that didn't fit at all while pretending to be consensus on terms. Which it isn't. In any case, you did find my main point, where the language and adjectives used in the childless context assumes an affliction. It assumes there is a problem, such as the infertility that you care about and are sensitive to. I think it is equally inconsiderate to not acknowledge people that just don't want children, as opposed to an explanation. Simply writing Childfree apparently illuminates that so well. So, its a two-way street, where everyone feels invalidated. Glad we could make that obvious.
- ThaDood 5y agoI am really not surprised. I'm under 30, about to get married have a decent paying job but the uncertainty of a lot of things (Healthcare, inflation, global warming, just to name a few) has both me and my SO still unsure if we want kids. It also might be that some people are realizing they would not be good parents and thus choosing to not have kids.
- frankbreetz 5y agoHealthcare and Inflation have always been something to worry about.
- _Adam 5y agoThose are all tractable problems. I don't mean overall, but the impact of all of those things on you is something you can control. It's possible that society has imposed ridiculously stringent "requirements" for raising children (apparently families are buying a second washing machine just for their baby's clothes) that raising children responsibly is viewed as financially unachievable for most.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wing-_-nuts 5y agoI'm going to be joining that cohort one day. I've never wanted children. I wonder to what extent this is a function of me being a single guy? Bringing a child into this world is a huge responsibility. I have no faith in my ability to protect and raise a child to adulthood without failing them in some way. Even if I somehow managed to raise a healthy, well adjusted child, there is also the specter of climate change. Is it ethical to bring a child into the world, when they will slowly watch the world they live in be slowly decimated by heat, drought, and rising seas? People have told me that I will regret my decision in old age. Maybe that's true, but if I ever get the urge to have kids, I'll simply volunteer, adopt or foster them. If they're already here on this earth, hopefully I can have a positive impact, and my conscience is clear.
- cnlevy 5y agoHow about asking older people (having had children/childless) what they think about their own situation ?
- truted2 5y agoHumans have a tendency to post rationalize their choices. Once you’re stuck with the consequences of your actions you justify it in a way that’s psychologically acceptable to you.
- cnlevy 5y agoOkay, then let have a study with elderly people, comparing percentage of childless people regretting their choice against percentage of those regretting having had children.
- toomuchtodo 5y agohttps://news.ufl.edu/archive/2003/04/uf-study-remaining-childless-does-not-lead-to-loneliness-in-old-age.html https://news.ufl.edu/archive/2003/04/uf-study-remaining-chil... https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-having-children-make-people-happier-in-the-long-run https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-having-children-make-people-... https://sciencenorway.no/ageing-childlessness-children/older-people-just-as-happy-without-children/1379299 https://sciencenorway.no/ageing-childlessness-children/older... https://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/enduringlove/sites/www.open.ac.uk.researchprojects.enduringlove/files/files/ecms/web-content/Final-Enduring-Love-Survey-Report.pdf https://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/enduringlove/sites/w...
- newbamboo 5y agoLiving in the Bay Area is probably the leading cause. Wish they focused more on political/regional correlates. (I’ve only read the summaries so far.)
- iammisc 5y agoWell as a catholic who lived in the bay area for many years the Catholics there have well above the average number of children.
- newbamboo 5y agoWell they literally have God helping them out. Many in the Bay Area or other expensive urban areas do not.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoHaving two kids is now above the average…
- iammisc 5y agoI'm talking 3-5 on average.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 5y agoBay area only has 7.7M people. US has 333M.
- neogodless 5y agoThis appears to be a faster growing segment than can be explained by infertility alone, though the recorded rates are also increasing over time. https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(98)00103-4/fulltext https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(98)00103-4/full...
- silverpepsi 5y agoAny mirrors? Seems this is only for US viewers. "Access Denied You don't have permission to access "http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/childless-older-adult-population.html http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/childless..." on this server. Reference #18.ce7519b8.1630427505.a68f250"
- seany 5y agohttps://archive.is/3hlRT https://archive.is/3hlRT
- pvm3 5y agohow long until we see a tax credit for pets?
- spywaregorilla 5y agoWhy would the government incentive pets?
- vmception 5y agoBecause their constituents want it
- pvm3 5y agono reason, but politicians want votes and proportion of childless pet owners relative to general population will continue to increase
- iscrewyou 5y agoThis is relevant: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/pet-project-biden-signs-bill-providing-service-dogs-struggling-veterans-n1277652 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/pet-project-biden... I can see this being adopted in the future as therapy for regular patients and then for everybody.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoPets can already predict the outcome of major sporting events, so they would probably be good government leaders as well.
- truted2 5y ago“Of all adults ages 55 to 64, 19.6% were childless, compared to 15.9% of those ages 65 to 74, and 10.9% of those 75 years and older.” According to this linear trend the last child in America will be born in 2045 [1] [1] https://xkcd.com/605/ https://xkcd.com/605/
- joelbondurant 5y agoWhy breed USA brand tax cattle state property objects, when mass suicide produces better culture.
- maerF0x0 5y agoas a single person, living far from family, and basically friendless, I'm recognizing there is probably a big market for having someone to fall back on. I used to have my now ex girlfriend as an emergency contact, but rn I have no one who I would miss me or likely to come help me if I were, say, hospitalized. I'd feel far more comfortable if I had someone on retainer to fill this risk gap.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoWhy wouldn’t you list your family as emergency contacts? Sorry about the friend situation though, it’s tough these days
- maerF0x0 5y agoThey live in another country. I mean I do actually list my mother as my emergency contact. But it's not like she'd be able to do anything besides cry and maybe get to me in 3-4 days time if it was really critical.
- propman 5y ago“Among childless adults ages 55 and older, 85.2% were White alone; 79.0% were non-Hispanic White; 9.2% were Black alone; 3.4% were Asian alone; 2.2% were all other races or reported multiple races; and 6.5% were Hispanic” This is a significant disparity based on race
- mensetmanusman 5y agoThis probably maps on wealth and education.
- runawaybottle 5y agoI’d like to see a little more data on these long term single people. It takes a village to raise another member of society. How big is one’s social circle, trustworthy friends/family, role models? I bet the monkey sphere is smaller for these people, so it feels a lot scarier to embark upon this milestone. Once upon a time it might be normal to rely on neighbors or large extended families for support, but the more isolated we get, the less safety net there is. If you didn’t work to build that network, you are pretty much handicapped in terms of giving the child the best chance possible. In other words, this demographic group might be making an extremely responsible decision.
- minikites 5y agoThe cost of living and costs of raising a child have both increased dramatically while wages are flat, of course people are having fewer kids. We could increase government childcare aid, but that involves taxing wealthy people, which isn't popular. We could reduce some of the future productivity loss with immigration, but many people don't like that idea either. Instead, childless adults are called selfish and blamed for eating too much avocado toast because that's easier than addressing the real problems.
- 908B64B197 5y ago> We could reduce some of the future productivity loss with immigration This assumes you can reach the same level of productivity. Not all immigration is created equal I'm afraid.
- spywaregorilla 5y agoThis feels like a huge problem. You hear about inverted population pyramids and what it costs to have a small young working population support the larger old population. But there's a big difference between 10 couples that had 1 kid each; and 5 couples that had 2 while 5 couples had 0. It dawns upon me that I don't know any elderly childless people. The social cost of supporting someone who is completely alone vs. someone who has a kid they can depend on, even if only infrequently across large geographies, is probably a lot higher.
- hellothere1337 5y agoI will die alone and forgotten by the world but at least I will be carbon neutral
- spywaregorilla 5y agoHow are you offsetting all those farts?
- rglover 5y agoBy inhaling them, of course. Positive feedback loop.
- redsymbol 5y agoThose people having children now are creating remarkable wealth for themselves in the future.
- rossdavidh 5y agoSo, from the beginning of humans (or well before really) until sometime in the mid-60's (or a little later depending on the area), the primary determinant of whether or not you had children is whether or not you were in a sexual relationship. Not that this was all that mattered, but it was the primary filter. In the last few decades, the primary determinant is whether or not you want children. Again, it's not the only reason, but it's the primary filter. So, natural selection might be in the middle of producing a species of humans obsessed with children, and not that interested in sex (except as a means of getting children). Of course, that's ridiculous; if that were true you would see declining self-reports of how often people are having sex. Don't look up the data on that, btw.
- wing-_-nuts 5y agoGiven what I've seen over the past decade, I think the first part of Idiocracy was prophetic.
- jedberg 5y ago> Of course, that's ridiculous; if that were true you would see declining self-reports of how often people are having sex. It's only been one generation. You'd need to wait a few 100 years before you see any change.
- iammisc 5y ago> So, natural selection might be in the middle of producing a species of humans obsessed with children, and not that interested in sex (except as a means of getting children). Why would you assume this? The only reason you'd assume this is that you have a preconceived notion that those of us who want lots of kids don't want sex. That's ridiculous. I'm a pretty traditional catholic, and it's pretty clear from my own life and my interactions with other traditional catholic men that we really like sex. In fact, given the stats, we and our wives like sex more than most people [1]. We also like the babies that come out. That's part of the fun. People like to group us religious people as sex-averse. It's quite the opposite. We just follow the normal ethics one would come up with (religious or not) if you viewed children as part of the natural results of sex (because.... they are). In that framework, religious exhortations like 'Don't have sex unless you're in a publicly recognized and blessed committed relationship (i.e., marriage)' become as obvious as 'don't have sex with people who don't want it'. [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/paeekv/why-conservatives-have-better-sex-lives-than-liberals https://www.vice.com/en/article/paeekv/why-conservatives-hav...
- jp42 5y agoFrom my observation in my social circle, there are two pressures that forcing not having kid or more kids. One is support system and second financial stability to take care or kids. First, with both partner working & almost no one to support(from relatives/close family) during first 3-5 years of kids. It's super exhausting and one starts having second thoughts about having more kids. Second, People want good future for kids. Daycare expenses, school, college etc. general thinking is if I can support one child really well and not two then its better to have just one. In my experience I have not seen anyone who genuinely dont like kids or regretted having kid even at their emotionally lowest point. It just above two primary forces, pushing them towards not have anymore kids.
- prirun 5y agoTotally agree with you. In the 60's when I grew up, there was one mother on our street who had a "great" job, some mothers worked full time jobs, some worked out of the house (ironing, babysitting, etc), but most with younger kids did not work. Each decade, women shifted more toward working outside the house, full time, and having good jobs on par with men. This has continued to where potential grandmothers also work, so cannot help with kids like they used to. Working has given women a lot more options than they used to have since they are not as financially dependent on men, but somebody still has to take care of houses and raise kids, and now that both parents usually work, this is a lot more difficult. We used to be able to have a decent family life on one income. Not so much a possibility now.
- wellthisisgreat 5y agoWhat age is too late for men to have children?
- r00fus 5y agoIt's expensive to have kids these days. Many would-be parents are holding off, and for good reason - at the same time, income inequality is at an all-time high since the great depression. The government should fix this in tax laws or directly assist if they want more kids (at a moderate salary, the child credit disappears and AMT calc essentially kills your deductions).
- hellothere1337 5y agoFor the sake of your sanity, do not google "male virginity rates after introduction of the smartphone"
- Scaevolus 5y agoOut of curiosity, I graphed the childless ratio for all ages based on their data: https://mod.ifies.com/f/210831_childless_ratio_by_age.png https://mod.ifies.com/f/210831_childless_ratio_by_age.png Eyeballing, it looks like 55-64 is more childless than 40-54, but I haven't done any deeper analysis to be able to project how the curve might change in the future. Data from here: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/sipp/data/datasets/2018-data/2018.html https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/sipp/data/datasets/2... Graph is made with their example pandas pandas code with the TCEB (total children ever born/fathered) column added, then: (df[df['TCEB']==0].groupby('TAGE').size().div(df.groupby('TAGE').size())).plot(); plt.show()
- teslaberry 5y agolook at the western world and look at nations with lots of kids. the thing causing low birth rates, is women's 'liberation' to work in the world of wage slavery and encouraging women to live in a world where their shelter is provided by the state, by their parents, or by themselves, instead of by a man/husband. it's culture. that simple. molded into culture is economics and other lenses. you can say this is 'redpill' or X pill or Y pill. but simply put, some cultures favor higher reproduction rate, and some lower.....
- mlboss 5y agoRaising kids is a very expensive but fun process. Raising kids teaches you patience, humility and selflessness. I read a quote somewhere that people don't change mind they die. Kids are the future. They will change the world, they will bring new ideas, new technologies, explore new planets, advance the race. We should not shrink away from the work involved. It is kind of selfish to be raised by past generation but not paying it back by raising the next generation.
- dumbfoundded 5y agoMaybe it's a good thing the selfish people aren't having kids. Having kids used to be a positive economic decision as 150 years ago, most people were farmers. Extra children meant extra help on the farm and kids quickly provided a positive return on investment. Now having kids is a mostly privatized cost with socialized benefit. I went to public school but other than that, the cost of raising me was put primarily on my mom's back. Now, as a 30 year old, I'm pretty sure I've paid enough taxes to pay back the public several times over. I'll never be able to payback my mom in any sense. We absolutely need a future generation as our deaths are guaranteed. That being said, the self selection process may be filtering out some potentially awful parents as there's no longer money to be made by having kids.
- anemoiac 5y ago> It is kind of selfish to be raised by past generation but not paying it back by raising the next generation. What would you say to those who consider having children the selfish decision?
- guntars 5y agoIt never even occurred to me that there are people who think not having kids is selfish, but I guess it makes sense - we are all protagonists in our own stories.
- guntars 5y agoHow do you reconcile the effect overpopulation has on this planet that said kids are going to inherit with the personal choice of having them? Climate change, plastic and chemical pollution, deforestation and subsequent erosion, factory farming, etc are all linked with the population and its consumption. I think currently each additional person is a net negative to the environment. This might be outweighed by them being a net positive to the society, but it's certainly not a slam dunk.
- api 5y agoBefore you fret about this, imagine if we had the opposite problem and population was growing the way it was in the US frontier days. If that were the case we really would be facing a "Soylent Green" future. I'll take the problems caused by a shrinking population over that.