A study by researchers at the Michigan State University (MSU) found that 21.6 percent of locals, comprising mostly women, want to live ‘childfree’.
Published on Monday, nearly two months after the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the abortion law, the study of 1,500 adults translated into 1.7 million people in Michigan being uninterested in having their own children. By extension, it would mean that nearly 50 to 60 million Americans want to live without kids.
Jennifer Watling Neal, an associate professor at MSU’s Psychology department and co-author of the study, stated in a university release that “following the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, a large number of Americans are now at risk of being forced to have children despite not wanting them”.
“People — especially women — who say they don’t want children are often told they’ll change their mind, but the study found otherwise,” she added.
People are making the decision to be childfree early in life, most often in their teens and twenties. And, it’s not just young people claiming they don’t want children. Women who decided in their teens to be childfree are now, on average, nearly 40 and still do not have children.
However, if other precedents are reversed and birth control becomes harder to access, many American women who have decided against pregnancy may be forced to have children.