Not Every Woman Needs Kids: It’s Her Life and a Valid Choice
For centuries, women’s roles were narrowly defined by marriage and motherhood. In many parts of the world, they had little say in their own lives—no access to education, no right to vote, and no freedom to choose their partners. Today, those limitations seem unthinkable. Yet even in modern societies, the expectation that women should marry and have children remains deeply rooted.
Across developed countries, more women—especially those who are well-educated—are deciding not to have children. Many are also choosing to remain single, prioritizing personal fulfillment, financial independence, and free time over traditional family structures. And yet, these choices are still met with disbelief, criticism, and pressure from society, family, relatives, and even friends.
In the past, a woman’s entire life was centered around getting married and having children. In many countries, women couldn’t receive an education, couldn’t vote, and couldn’t even choose their own husbands. By today’s standards, this was an incredibly difficult and unfortunate life.
However, in today’s developed countries, the more educated a woman is, the more likely she is to remain child-free. Their rates of staying single are also significantly higher compared to other groups. This article explores how and why a growing number of women are saying “no” to marriage and motherhood—and what science says about those choices.
When women say they don’t want children—does that really mean they won’t end up having them? Society and people around them still expect women to get married and have children. Relatives, coworkers, and even parents often nag them to settle down and start a family, insisting that this is a woman’s purpose of life. Research even shows that many people dread family gatherings. People tend to envy those better off than them and look down on those doing worse. However, they also often feel compassion for those in very unfortunate situations and respect those who have obviously succeeded. This can lead people to project their own desires or unfulfilled dreams onto others, pressuring them to live a certain way.
But we now live in an era that values more than just reproduction—we pursue meaningful goals and freedom over our time. In fact, many studies show that free time brings more happiness than money. Plenty of people say they would never want to come back in another life just to be a corporate or wage slave. After all, it is not very sustainable to do physically demanding jobs well into your 30s and 40s. That is why it is important to build passive income systems—because many people fall into poverty once they retire.
Especially when women in their 20s or 30s say they don’t want children, people often scoff and say, “You’ll definitely change your mind later.” When they say they don’t want to get married, others respond, “It’s always those women who end up getting married the fastest—and who take marriage the most seriously.”
But research shows those assumptions are wrong.
In the U.S. and other wealthy, industrialized countries, the number of women who postpone or ultimately forego childbirth is steadily increasing. In 2014, nearly half of women in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 39 had no children. While most women are considered to be at the end of their childbearing years by their mid-40s (due to menopause and hormonal instability—though a few exceptions don’t experience perimenopause until around age 50), about 1 in 7 women (14%) ended up remaining child-free.
So how do women come to realize they don’t want children? Did they know from the start, or did they begin undecided and then encounter too many barriers?
A long-term study published in Social Forces in June 2019 examined women who remained child-free. Sociologists Anna Rybinska and Philip Morgan from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill analyzed data on about 4,500 American women born between 1957 and 1965.
What were the most common paths to not having children?
Among the 611 women who ultimately did not have children, more than half (336 women, or 51%) initially intended to have children but later changed their minds in their 20s or 30s, deciding against it.
About 46% of the women kept delaying childbirth and eventually ended up not having children. These women said they wanted children up to a certain point in life, but after passing that stage, they reported no longer wanting them and remained firm in that decision. A total of 261 women followed this pattern of postponement.
Only 2% were consistently certain they did not want children from the very beginning. Just 11 women out of the 611 (about 2%) consistently said they did not want to have children, answering this way from a very young age whenever they were asked.
On the other hand, only 0.5% expected to have children their entire lives but ended up not having any. This pattern—expecting to have children but not doing so—was extremely rare. Only 3 of the 611 women (about 0.5%) fell into this group.
Throughout their reproductive years, these women were surveyed 19 times about whether they planned to have children (or more children, if they already had some). The final round of questions took place when they were between the ages of 47 and 56. At that point, around 14% of the overall group (661 out of 4,473 women) had not had any biological children.
Because researchers followed these 4,473 women throughout their childbearing years, they were able to trace the different paths that led them to remain child-free. Sociologists Anna Rybinska and Philip Morgan identified four distinct trajectories:
Consistently Child-Free: These women said from the very first survey to the last that they had no intention of having children.
Expected to Have Children but Didn’t: These women consistently expected to have children each time they were asked, but for various reasons, it never happened.
Undecided: These women were uncertain at first, often changing their answers. They might have said they planned to have children early on, then later said they didn’t. In the end, they remained child-free but were not always sure if that was their true desire.
Delayed, Then Opted Out: These women kept saying they planned to have children every time they were asked—until a turning point later in life. Then their answers changed to “no,” and they maintained that response through the end of their reproductive years. The researchers described this group as women who postponed childbirth until they eventually decided not to pursue it.
Rybinska and Morgan also used three key approaches in their research.
First, they examined whether women who said they didn’t plan to have children were actually unlikely to do so.
Second, they started with women who ended up having no biological children and looked back to see what percentage of them had predicted early in life that they wouldn’t have children.
And third—perhaps most interestingly—they analyzed the various paths women followed toward remaining child-free.
If a woman said at a young age that she didn’t want children, did she actually remain child-free later in life?
The way women responded to questions about whether they expected to have children in the future turned out to be quite significant—especially in their 20s and 30s. While some women did change their minds, those who said they did not plan to have children were far more likely to remain child-free than those who said they did plan to have children.
At age 24, women who said they did not expect to have children were 4.5 times more likely to remain child-free than women who said they expected to have children.
By age 30, that gap grew even more. Women who said they didn’t expect to have children were 5.1 times more likely to remain child-free than those who did.
At age 40, women who predicted they would not have children were 7 times more likely to remain child-free.
By age 46, the odds increased again—those who said they would not have children were 7.7 times more likely to follow through on that expectation compared to women who still said they would.
Women’s answers also shifted noticeably depending on their age at the time of the survey:
At age 24, only 10% of women said they didn’t expect to have biological children.
By age 30, among those who remained child-free, 24% already said they didn’t expect to have children.
By age 34, that number rose to 43%.
At age 40, 78% of child-free women said they didn’t plan to have children.
And by age 46, 92% of women who were still child-free said they didn’t expect to have children.
These findings show a clear pattern: as women age, their expectations about childbearing tend to become more stable and predictive of their actual outcomes.
This research sheds light on the many paths women take toward a child-free life—whether by early decision, gradual postponement, changing expectations, or personal circumstances. It challenges the idea that not having children is always the result of a sudden or last-minute choice. Instead, many women make these decisions thoughtfully over time, influenced by evolving values, life situations, and social norms.
What becomes clear is that women’s intentions—especially in their 20s and 30s—can be strong indicators of their future outcomes. While some change their minds, most who say early on that they don’t want children tend to follow through. And those who postpone or remain uncertain often find themselves drifting away from parenthood as the years pass.
Understanding these trajectories is crucial—not just for researchers and policymakers, but for society as a whole. It encourages a more nuanced, respectful conversation about reproductive choices, free from outdated assumptions or one-size-fits-all narratives.
Child-free lives are not mistakes or anomalies; for many women, they are deliberate, meaningful decisions shaped over time.
From a young age, women start to form expectations about whether or not they want to have children. In contrast, men are often more focused on finding a lifelong partner to share a room or bed with. But unlike in the past, many women today have stronger, more confident opinions about their own bodies and futures. As life unfolds, they encounter new insights about family and children, or face unexpected obstacles—like having a child with a disability, going bankrupt due to a rare illness, or spending enormous amounts caring for an ill parent with a stroke or heart condition.
South Korea, despite being a developed country, has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. Online, people learn that raising and educating a child in Korea—including private education and English tutoring, especially to get them into one of Seoul’s top 10 universities—can cost upwards of 300 million KRW. As a result, some come to a harsh conclusion: “If I can’t afford to send my child to a top university in Seoul and can only afford to send them to a local or vocational college, maybe it’s better not to have children at all.”
Others realize the staggering costs of raising children in modern society—spending up to 300 million KRW (approx. $220,000 USD) to get a child into an Ivy League school in Korea. Many think: “Why bring a child into the world only to see them become an overworked, wage-slave employee at a mediocre company? Isn’t it just kind to both of us to avoid that miserable future?”
Many people are discovering that parenting is more exhausting and labor-intensive than holding two full-time jobs. Many women experience paintful regret and depression during menopause, asking themselves why they invested everything—and all of their lives—into motherhood, bearing and raising children. Without children, one can spend their time and money entirely on themselves throughout their 30s and 40s—a mindset shared by the so-called YOLO or FIRE generation. As many wealthy people in their 50s often say: “If I could sell everything I have just to live my 20s again, I would—only this time, I would live very differently.”
Compared to past generations, today’s women are more informed—thanks to the internet and higher levels of education. As a result, marriage and motherhood no longer define a woman’s identity. During their 20s and 30s, many women shift their priorities and redefine their life goals. Those who say early on that they don’t want children are significantly more likely to remain child-free later in life. Even at a young age, they often know exactly what they’re saying. They’re not confused—they’re actively choosing the life they want.
Ultimately, the most important thing in life is not merely copying and doing what everyone else is doing, but carefully choosing what not to do among them, as some of those things are harmful peer pressures or false beliefs. So, learning to judge what is actually good or bad for you—among what others are doing—is the smartest choice. The people who succeed are not those who blindly follow the crowd, but those who selectively choose only what’s right for them from the paths others are pursuing. That is how you can successfully end up with a life that is more free, peaceful, genuine, and truly your own.