A quarter of adults don't want children

Views on children are changing in the USA. Research shows that 25 per cent of adults do not want children. A quarter of American adults are happy being "child-free". Two psychologists did research on why child-free people might be different from "non-parents". They said non-parents are "not-yet-parents" (those planning to have kids) and people who cannot have children because of medical problems.

Researchers looked at data from 1,000 adults. They were surprised by how many child-free people there were. They said child-free people were more liberal than parents. Unsurprisingly, parents were more likely to be in a relationship. Child-free adults were a little younger and less well-educated than parents or non-parents. The researchers added that more research would find out why people want to be child-free.