Talk

Most of my very clever female friends from university don't have children tbh, it is not something I have ever thought about before.

I have 4!

IQ is not the only measure of intelligence!!

I think it is more "intelligent" to seek a fulfilling, satisfying life where the balance of work and family gives a deep seated happiness....

but that's just me.... (with my first in Maths from the olden days where no "girlies" got one)

There is more than one type of intelligence though. My experience of extremely academically intelligent people (and I do mean those who get things are completely beyond most of us, and I'm also conscious this is a generalisation and based on only my own experience) is that they tend to be less emotionally warm and empathetic. In at least two cases this has lead to their living alone. I wonder how many women in the study truly avoided children and how many are single because they are so into their academic lives that there is little room for relationships of any kind?

Hmm. Could it be that the 'more intelligent' women have more money, more time and more awareness of the options they have in life, more likely to have heard of feminism, more likely to see themselves as more than just a prospective mother so are more likely to see motherhood as an optional extra, rather than biological destiny?

It is interesting that 1 in 4 women will not have a baby, for a variety of reasons of course. I think this is good news for women - hopefully motherhood will be seen as a choice, not part and parcel of being a woman. I'm about 99% sure on being childfree myself. I had heard that the more highly educated a woman is, the less likely she is to have children, but had never heard of a correlation with intelligence before.

Interesting. I've certainly seen it said before, particularly in relation to developing countries, that women have fewer children and have them later in life the more educated they are - education and intelligence obviously being different things but with a link.

There are different types of intelligence.

I think emotional intelligence is more important in the raising of children.

I am surprised there was no change after correction for education.

Intelligence can frequently correlate with opportunity (obviously not always) so yes, I would concur that women with a wider range of life options available to them are more likely to not choose having children. It makes sense.

I think it is true.

Potentially interesting. But how do they measure "youthful intelligence"? If they mean "People who are very academically driven from an early age and therefore do well in IQ tests" are likely to decide early that they are never going to want children, and then stick to that, then I'm not sure that it has much to do with being "intelligent" in a wider context.

And yes, things like education and seeing a broader range of opportunities are probably more at work than innate "intelligence". If you don't see much choice in life apart from a relationship and some children, because that's what you see around you, then you're unlikely to decide early in life to be childless.

Well I have no children and I'm a genius

Must be true

Correlation =/= causation.

I'm sure I've heard this on and off over many years, and that the correlation is true of both men and women (not just women).

There must be many causal influences to result in the observed trend; higher level of education leading to better access to contraception, more actual choice, more focus on career etc etc.

Have you ever seen the film Idiocracy?

In a nutshell, more intelligent/affluent couples wait to have children, then realize they have left it too late, and are bred out by stupid people who have hoards and hoards of children. It's actually quite funny.

I have 2 friends who are currently undergoing IVF, they both have firsts from 'good' universities and are very advanced in their chosen fields.

They are desperate for children but didn't start to try until they reached late 30's.

TBH, I think that several of my friends have other friends in the same boat - either having IVF, trying to adopt or trying to find surrogates because they dedicated themselves to their careers during their 'optimal childbearing years'

I think it is probably more likely that this is the case for at least some of the 25% of women not having children.

I agree that IQ is a shite measure of intelligence.

This is just from where I'm standing so obviously a bit at a tangent - but some intelligent people will do postgrad education, and there is currently quite a strong pressure against women having children in that context. I've been in education for the past ten years (ok, if I were one of the really intelligent ones they mean, I'd have been in education for eight years). So I am in my late 20s, and I haven't got a job. Basically, education is setting it up to make it that bit more tricky for women like me to have babies. This isn't because all intelligent people do postgrads (obviously they don't), but if you're a woman who goes on in education, you will be less likely to live a lifestyle that's conducive to having children until much later on - so you've less time to think about it.

Other than that, I have a horrible feeling that single-minded focus is something that traditional IQ tests value quite a lot, and I can imagine that if you are very single-minded, the idea of having children might be quite scary or unwelcome, as you would know it would require you to split your focus.

I can see that being true.

For example a more intelligent women is more likely to think and work out details of how having children would impact . So they would want to know they have savings/ good maternity leave/ potentially start up a self employed part of work / decent home etc.. All can take various number of years to achieve, and therefore mean they are likely to start having babies later, leaving them less time to have lots of children

It couldn't be all of it though, I think. And I think as well, a very intelligent person ought to be able to work out how to balance it all out. And I'm not sure that often happens. So I do suspect it comes back to definitions of intelligence.

I wonder, actually, how much bias comes into the testing. You know there's that Cordelia Fine study she cites, where people tested the reactions of boy and girl babies, but they knew which ones were boys and which were girls, and it affected how they judged what they saw?

A human being has to administer an IQ test, it can't be computerised (so far as I know), so I assume there must be bias in there. I wonder if people are biased enough against mothers to assume they will be less intelligent? Or to stereotype characteristics that go with wanting children, as less intelligent?

I know a fair bit about how they administer IQ tests and they are a lot more subjective than people sometimes think.

I've always wanted children. I wanted babies since I was about 3.

I must be really, really thick.

Ditto.

Is about wanting children, though, or having them?

I also wonder how much parents have to do with it. Again, this won't be a particularly strong correlation, but if you have parents who push you academically, you may come out with a 'higher IQ' . Those parents might also be less keen to encourage you to have children early on. Just guessing really.

I'm currently finishing my PhD and nearly all my friends are degree or higher qualified, we're all late 20's/early 30's. None of us have children. Some of us are inclined to maybe have them later in life, others of us not.

True for me. Not sure it's because of 'intelligence' - more to do with refusing to have one if I couldn't 'afford' it (due to extreme childhood poverty).

By the time I could 'afford' it (ie. without recourse to the state) I was too old.

More to do with capitalism and inequality of society for me.

I would equate waiting until you can afford it/stable home/savings/job security as intelligent things to do before you start a family. But maybe that's just me.

The article wasn't at all saying 'only clever women decide to not have children' or 'it's only stupider women who have children' and the "breeders" comment was actually given as an example of an awful person (if I remember right from reading it a few hours ago!)

However I can understand how there is a correlation. If you are more intelligent on the IQ scale you are statistically more likely to be highly educated and have a career, possibly a very involving or high pressed one. You're undoubtedly then more likely to earn more money and do more with your free time. I can see how in that situation, women who had doubts about whether they do or don't want to become a mother, become more confident with a decision not to have children. They already have a fulfilling live for them, with hobbies and holidays and a busy job.

Not saying that people who don't have those things can't be fulfilled or anything, just that I can see how more IQ-intelligent people might make the decision more easily and more consciously.

Yes, it is an intelligent thing to do, but the point is that it happens later for some people than others.

A mate of mine had her first baby when she had just got a mortgage and was settled down with her fiance, whom she'd been with for (IIRC) seven years, and they both had steady jobs. She was 22. By comparison, I know plenty of people who didn't get their first job until they were pushing 30, couldn't afford a mortgage for years after that, etc. etc. So they had to decide, do I have a baby now, when I'm not very financially secure, or do I wait until I get that permanent job aged 37, at which point I may discover it's too late?

The system is not geared up to support women very well, and I think it is harder for women to have children if they work in certain fields, which are fields that attract intelligent people. That's not to say women who work in jobs like my mate who had her babies aged 22 are less intelligent, or that they have things easier (because often they don't as they're less well paid). It's just one of the factors that might explain these findings.