Historical Trends in Childlessness

Abstract

Changes in the rates of childlessness over time are explored using European, Australian, American, and Japanese data from censuses, national registers, and large-scale surveys. The trends are remarkably similar across the countries for which data are available: a peak in childlessness rates for the 1880-1910 birth cohorts, a more or less continuous drop across the 1910-1945 birth cohorts, and a steady rise across the cohorts born after the Second World War. Thus, contemporary older adults (particularly the “young old”) belong to generations for which the proportions childless are near the minimum ever recorded. The article examines the factors associated with the changes in rates of childlessness, and more particularly trends in marriage (e.g., median age at marriage and the proportions marrying), trends in family formation (e.g., median age at the first birth and average family size), and the role of voluntary and involuntary factors.