Why are more women choosing not to have kids?

A new book examines the complicated history of motherhood and choosing to be childfree.

More and more women in the United States are saying no to motherhood; in 2023, the US fertility rate reached the lowest number on record.

But the idea of non-motherhood is actually not a new phenomenon—nor did it come out of the modern feminist movement.

For centuries, women have made choices about limiting births and whether to become mothers at all. This history is documented in a new book, Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother (Seal Press, 2023), by University of Chicago scholar Peggy O’Donnell Heffington.

Heffington writes about the historic trends of non-motherhood as well as the modern factors that are playing a role in women’s choices to not have children today—from a lack of structural support in the workplace, to a national law for paid maternity leave and the sheer lack of affordability. She writes that if these trends continue, American millennials could become the largest child-free cohort in history.

In this episode of the Big Brains podcast, Heffington digs into her book and why more women are choosing to be childfree:

Read the transcript for this episode. Subscribe to Big Brains on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Source: University of Chicago