CV NEWS FEED // The percentage of childless U.S. adults who say they never want children has doubled over the span of 20 years, rising from 14% in 2002 to 29% in 2023, a new study discovered.
The research, performed by a team at Michigan State University, used data from the National Survey of Family Growth to analyze 80,000 adults’ attitudes toward having children, MSUToday reported. In addition to fewer people desiring children, the percentage of childless adults who plan to have children in the future also fell, going from 79% to 59% across the same time frame.
“We knew from our prior research that childfree adults were a large and growing group in Michigan,” said Zachary Neal, MSU professor of psychology and co-author of the study, according to MSUToday. “These new results confirm this is part of a nationwide trend that has been unfolding for over 20 years.”
The prior research to which Neal referred includes a 2024 MSU study which discovered that the percentage of adults who do not want children jumped about five percentage points after the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The researchers used the 2025 study to distinguish the individual needs of adults if they do or do not desire children. Neal said that childless adults who want children are a stable group that often seeks fertility treatments, but the demographic that does not want children has more unique needs. He emphasized that the future for childless adults looks different without heirs.
Next, the MSU research team plans to analyze adults’ attitudes toward having children on a global scale, taking into account the impact that economics and politics might have on people’s decisions to have children.
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