USA Today
The real story behind America’s population bomb: Adults want their independence
Clay Routledge and Will Johnson – October 12, 2022
Declining birth rates are a major concern for the United States and many countries around the world, so we – an expert in existential psychology and an expert in pulsing public opinion – surveyed the Americans choosing not to have children to learn the reasons why.
Americans are having fewer children than are needed to keep population numbers stable.
Low birth rates are not only an American problem. In 2020, researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projected that the global fertility rate will drop below 1.7 by the end of this century. And countries such as Italy, South Korea, Spain and Thailand will lose more than half their population within the lifetimes of children being born this year.
Fear of not just climate change and affordable housing
Much of the conversation in the United States about this issue has focused on fears about the future of the world or major economic challenges. For instance, the threat of climate change and the affordability of housing are frequently referenced as reasons that Americans don’t want to have kids.
While those are concerns of course, when you look at the data, family planning appears to be influenced more by people’s personal views about the independent life they want to live than their worries about potential environmental or economic issues.
This has important implications for how we as a nation approach the demographic challenge of declining birth rates.
Specifically, we surveyed a representative sample of just over 1,000 U.S. adults about their future family planning. Of those without children, about half (52%) do not want to have a child in the future, while 20% remain unsure.
We then asked these individuals whether their decision to not have children was influenced by a wide range of factors. Only 28% of them reported that climate change influenced their decision to not have kids. Similarly, only 33% indicated that housing prices influenced their decision.
Other factors we asked about including the political situation in the United States (31%), safety concerns (31%), personal financial situation (46%) and work-life balance (40%) were endorsed by less than half of respondents.
The only factor that the majority (54%) of Americans who don’t want to have kids endorsed as influencing their decision was maintaining personal independence.
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Desire for personal independence is most powerful
Moreover, since respondents were able to indicate multiple reasons for not having kids, we also asked them which of those factors most influenced their decision. Further suggesting that this decision is more about personal preferences than other factors, we found that maintaining personal independence was reported as the most influential factor for more respondents than any other factor; 43% of those who considered independence to be a factor indicated that it was the most influential reason for not having kids.
For comparison, only 26% of those who considered climate change when deciding whether to have children reported that it was the most influential reason and only 9% of those who considered housing prices indicated such.
Americans may have multiple reasons for opting out of parenting, but their desire for personal independence is the most powerful one.
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It is also worth noting that men and women were generally similar in their reasoning; 53% of females and 55% of males reported that their desire to maintain their personal independence influenced their decision to not have children. No other reason for not having kids was cited by a majority of men or women.
We shouldn’t oversimplify the story of why more and more Americans are choosing to not start families. It is undoubtedly complex and involves facets that public opinion surveys can’t fully capture. However, our results have important implications for cultural and political discussions around this issue.
Changes in public policy may not help
Perhaps most important, our findings suggest that public policy solutions are unlikely to have much impact on birth rates. Because Americans who are opting out of having children are more influenced by their desire to maintain their personal independence than concerns about climate change or affordable housing, or other issues such as work-life balance and safety, efforts to promote a more pro-natal society will need to be more cultural in nature.
More specifically, these efforts will need to address psychological needs related to individuals’ life goals and priorities.
How do we change people’s attitude about how children will affect their lives if they privilege personal freedom over other ideals? A good place to start is to focus on one of the most fundamental psychological needs, the need for existential meaning.
Humans are highly motivated to perceive their lives as meaningful. And it is when they perceive their lives as full of meaning that they are most mentally healthy, resilient, goal-driven, self-disciplined and self-reliant. In this way, meaning can be thought of as a key ingredient to achieving personal independence.
The Americans concerned about how having children may affect their personal independence may not realize that meaning is so empowering and that family is a fundamental source of meaning. For instance, surveys find that when people are asked what makes their lives feel meaningful, the most common response is family.
In addition, studies find that parents report higher levels of meaning than adults without children and have a greater sense of meaning when they are taking care of their children than when they are engaged in other activities.
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Cultural narratives that treat parenting as a threat to personal independence and a roadblock to a fulfilling life may contribute to declining birth rates more than many realize.
There are of course environmental, economic and other challenges that can make people worried about bringing another human into this world and that can make raising children difficult.
But this is not new. For much of our history, most humans lived far more perilous lives than we live today. Our challenge is less about our material conditions and more about our mindset.
If we want a world with more children, we are going to have to convince people that having and raising kids is a critical ingredient of, not a barrier to, the good life.