MPIDR Working Paper
Trends and patterns in childlessness by age, race, ethnicity, and education in the United States: a research note
MPIDR Working Paper WP-2026-005, 26 pages.
Rostock, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (February 2026)
Abstract
As the United States is in an era of sustained fertility decline, childlessness across the life course is an increasingly important demographic phenomenon to understand. We developed a Bayesian parametric model to estimate the proportion of women who are childless by age, race and ethnicity, and education for birth cohorts 1950-1999 using data from the Current Population Survey and the National Survey of Family Growth. We show that there have been substantial changes to childbearing trajectories in the United States, with an increase in the share of women who are childless at most ages. For the 1950-1954 birth cohort, the age by which 50% of women had a child was 24 years, while for the 1990-1994 cohort it had risen to 29 years. Childlessness declines rapidly at early ages for those with a high school degree only, while those with a college degree enter parenthood later. Increases in childlessness at younger ages have not yet had substantial effects on the share of women without children at age 45, which has risen for some groups but fallen for others, particularly the most-educated mothers.
Keywords: USA, childless couples