One in five U.S. women in their early 40s has no children, according to the Census Bureau. That's double the level from 30 years ago and a record high.
Women age 40-44 who do have children have fewer than ever — an average of 1.9, according to the report.
“A lot of women are not having any children,” Jane Lawler Dye, a Census Bureau researcher who did the report, told The New York Times. “It used to be sort of expected that there was a phase of life where you had children, and a lot of women aren’t doing that now.”
Candice Watters, who left her job at Focus on the Family in 2002 for full-time motherhood, said most women want to have children but may be waiting too long.
"There is the perception, perpetuated in large part by Hollywood, that you can wait until your late 30s or even your early 40s and have a baby without too much trouble," she said. But "it's really difficult for a woman over 40 to conceive."
And the culture isn't helping, Watters said.
"Women feel cultural pressure to get all of their schooling done, and much of their career-building done, before they even start to think about marriage," she said. "My advice is to make getting married and having babies at least as much of a priority as your education goals and career goals."
Watters addresses those issues in her new book Get Married: What Women Can Do to Help It Happen.
Carrie Lukas, vice president for policy and economics at the Independent Women’s Forum, agreed the culture shares responsibility.
"So much of our culture has made kids seem like big sacrifices and a big inconvenience," she said. "There is something to being an increasingly secular society and being a little self-absorbed in not thinking about the legacy you want to leave."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Candice Watters founded Boundless.org webzine for Focus on the Family in 1998 and continues to write about dating, getting married and “fitting kids into a life.”
Read more about the upcoming book from Steve and Candice Watters, Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies.
Visit Focus on the Family's Marriage Web site.
Visit Focus' Parenting Web site.
(NOTE: Referral to Web sites not produced by Focus on the Family is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)
