Family post-Roe: ‘Childfree’ population grew in Michigan, MSU study finds
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, fewer Michigan adults want kids, a study found.
Researchers at Michigan State University say that before the landmark case was overturned in 2022, around 21% of adults in Michigan did not want children; post-Roe, that number rose to 26%.
“We knew that childfree adults were a large group in Michigan, but with more uncertainty around reproductive health care, even more adults don’t want children than before,” Zachary Neal, MSU professor of psychology and co-author of the study, which was published in PLOS One, said in a Wednesday release. “After taking into account adults’ sex, age, race and education, the probability that a Michigan adult never wants children increased by almost a third.”
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The study uses data from the school’s State of the State Survey; 2,500 adults had been surveyed in the months before the Dobbs v. Jackson decision was leaked, MSU said. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, 2,000 adults were surveyed.
Jennifer Watling Neal, MSU professor of psychology and co-author of the study, said that while the right to reproductive freedom was enshrined in the state constitution through a 2022 ballot proposal, “That protection came only after a lot of uncertainty and legal chaos, which may have led potential parents to decide having children simply isn’t worth the health risks.”
The researchers went on to say reproductive restrictions may “lead to fewer new births.”
But the post-Roe numbers follow a trend of Americans skipping out on parenthood.
In 2021, 44% of those ages 18 to 49 who weren’t already parents said they were either not too likely or not at all likely to have kids someday, the Pew Research Center found.
More than half just don’t want kids, the study found. Nineteen percent cited medical reasons, 17% cited financial reasons, 15% cited not having a partner. Other reasons included age (10%), the ‘state of the world’ (9%) and climate change (5%).
Looking at fertility rates before the pandemic, the Pew Research Center says 2019 marked the fifth consecutive year with a fertility rate decline. And that same year, the teen birth rate was at 16.7 per 1,000 girls between the ages of 15 to 19, down dramatically from the 96.3 rate seen in 1957 during the baby boom.
Another study from the Pew Research Center found that the percentage of adults between the ages of 25 to 49 who are married with kids dropped from 67% in 1970 to 37% in 2021. Meanwhile, the total number of those who were married or cohabitating with no kids rose, from around 18% in 1970 to 28% in 2021.
Mothers are also having fewer children. The Pew Research Center found that in 1976, the average woman in her early 40s had given birth 3.1 times, while in 2020 that number was 2.0.
The MSU researchers say they “will next explore adults’ desires to have children from a global perspective and the role that politics may play in this.”
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