CHILDLESSNESS AMONG OLDER WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES: TRENDS AND PROFILES

In the last 2 decades, the United States has seen an increase in childlessness and first births at older ages. Using the National Survey of Family Growth, we focus on women aged 35 - 44 who are voluntarily childless (expect no children and are fecund or contraceptively sterile). We compare these women to those who are involuntarily childless (fecundity impaired) and to those who are temporarily childless (expect children). Voluntary childlessness grew from 1982 (5%) to 1988 (8%), was stable up to 1995 (9%), and fell slightly in 2002 (7%). Voluntarily childless women have the highest income, prior work experience, and lowest religiosity compared to other women. This has been true since 1982, the earliest time point examined. Key Words: childlessness, delayed childbearing, fertility. Over the last three decades, the United States has seen a steady increase in the proportion of women who are childless at older ages. Data from the Current Population Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau show that in 1976 the percentage of women aged 35 - 39 who were childless was 11, whereas in 2002, this percent had risen to 20. Among those aged 40 - 44, the percent childless grew from 10 in 1976 to 18 in 2002 (Downs, 2003). There are two basic limitations to many of the studies that describe overall childlessness among women in these older reproductive ages. First, women's expectations for future births are not always taken into account. Thus, whether the currently childless population is temporarily or permanently childless remains an open question. Research and popular media have often focused on the scenario whereby older childless women desire children (Hewlett, 2002; KaIb, 2001). Recent data on rising first birth rates for older women reveal that the older temporarily childless group has been growing (Martin et al., 2005; Mathews & Hamilton, 2002; Ventura, 1999), indicating growing numbers of older women who fit the temporarily childless classification. The second limitation of many analyses of childlessness is that they do not allow a distinction between childless women who have no known fertility problems from those who do. This is important given that a nontrivial percentage of older childless women has fecundity impairments-12% among those aged 35 - 39 and 18% among those aged 40 - 44, in 2002 (Chandra, Martinez, Mosher, Abma, & Jones, 2005). These are likely to be very different women; the fecundity impaired possibly composed of women who would have, or plan to have, children if they were able to do so. This research addresses these limitations by taking into account both (a) childless women 's expectations for future births and (b) their own known biological ability to have children or that of their husband or cohabiting partner (if any). Childless women nearing the end of their reproductive life span are unique because they have had considerable time to invest in domains other than parenthood. Against this backdrop, some are deciding to remain childless, others act quickly to realize childbearing aspirations, and others are coming to grips with the inability to have children. For these older women, we present trends in the size of the childless groups, with a focus on those who do not expect children and are either able to have a child or are contraceptively sterile (labeled voluntarily childless in this analysis). We examine profiles of the voluntarily childless compared to the other groups, tracking their characteristics across the years from the early 1980s through 2002. Finally, we go beyond basic demographic profiles and present in-depth profiles of characteristics and experiences known to be relevant for delaying and forgoing childbearing. Previous Studies of Childlessness Studies of the characteristics of late child bearers show that postponement has occurred among women of all races, ethnicities, and levels of education, but is most pronounced among White women and women with more education (Heck, Schoendorf, Ventura, & Kiely, 1997; Martin, 2000). …