Many years ago, it wasn't uncommon to see families out and about with four, five, and even six children. It was the norm to have larger families. But as the years passed, people have been having fewer and fewer children. While there has been a great deal of speculation as to why this is happening, such as life just being much more expensive these days, researchers finally took the time to figure out why - and the reasons might surprise you.
A recent report done by the CDC, says that the U.S. general fertility rate (births per 1,000 females aged 15–44) declined 3 percent between 2016 and 2017 for nearly all race and Hispanic-origin groups. Teen birth rates also declined by 7 percent during this time. Furthermore, about 70 percent of parents in the US who are younger than 50 say it’s unlikely they’ll have more kids in the future. Additionally, out of the couples who don't have children, 37 percent say they don’t ever expect to become parents.
Based on this information, further research was done by the Pew Research Center and they believe that lots of millennials just don't want large families as a whole. Obviously, the decision to have children to begin with and grow your family is a very personal choice and everyone has their very specific reasoning and circumstances, but this study, which focused on adults between the ages of 18 and 49 narrowed these reasons down a bit.
The research shows that the reasons people are having fewer children are:
- Medical reasons (41 percent)
- Age (25 percent)
- Already have kids (9 percent)
- Financial reasons (6 percent)
- No willing partner (3 percent)
- Other reason (6 percent)
In addition, 64 percent of parents who are younger than 40 shared they will be unlikely to expand their families simply because they do not want any more children and 36 percent agree, except didn't reveal their reasoning. Then, in the 40 to 49 age gound, 49 percent revealed they don’t expect to have more children say there’s another reason for this other than simply not wanting more.
Again, these are very individual choices overall and things have changed dramatically from the years when people were having very large families, so there's more to take into consideration than ever when making this really big decision.
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