In the comments of the last post, Dr. Bruce Charlton reminds us of the issue of growing female childless ness. Let's compare men and women on this. I list below the percent of people without any children. I limit the women to those ages 45 to 64, and ages 50 to 69 for men.
Percent childless
1970s
Men 17.3
Women 13.8
1980s
Men 13.4
Women 10.2
1990s
Men 14.3
Women 15.8
2000s
Men 19.0
Women 15.8
2010
Men 16.6
Women 18.8
The percent of women with no kids almost doubled from 10.2 percent in the 1980s to 18.8 percent in 2010. Having no kids has also grown a bit among men. The childless numbers for men and women are pretty close to each other which fails to support the claim that men are much more variable in their fruitfulness than women.
Showing posts with label Childlessness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Childlessness. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Predictors of childlessness
I looked at over 5,000 respondents from the GSS to estimate a model that predict the odds of having at least one child. Here are the results (logistic regression coefficients):
Having at least one child
Age .05
IQ -.05
Years of education -.15
Income .00
Belief in God .15
Political conservatism .08
All of the relationships are statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level (two-tailed test). The estimates depend on the scale of the predictor: the income coefficient is so small, for example, because income varies so widely. Income is actually a comparatively strong predictor of not being childless, as is age (not surprisingly). Education is also a strong predictor of having no kids. IQ is weaker. Belief in God is a strong predictor the other way, while conservatism is a weaker predictor.
Long story short: being an educated liberal atheist is like having a disease where your testicles rot and fall off.
And you develop this mysterious desire to get a dog or a cat.
Having at least one child
Age .05
IQ -.05
Years of education -.15
Income .00
Belief in God .15
Political conservatism .08
All of the relationships are statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level (two-tailed test). The estimates depend on the scale of the predictor: the income coefficient is so small, for example, because income varies so widely. Income is actually a comparatively strong predictor of not being childless, as is age (not surprisingly). Education is also a strong predictor of having no kids. IQ is weaker. Belief in God is a strong predictor the other way, while conservatism is a weaker predictor.
Long story short: being an educated liberal atheist is like having a disease where your testicles rot and fall off.
And you develop this mysterious desire to get a dog or a cat.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Twenty percent of white women past the age of childbearing have no children
This Pew graph shows that childlessness is most common among white women. It was so nearly 20 years ago, and it still is. One in five white women in her early 40s has no children and probably never will. Many of the most capable women say no to kids while most of those least fit to be mothers have plenty. Just look below:
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