The poorest men are most likely to be childless against their will

[Socktopusses]

Really interesting article on BBC News today - especially interesting points around wealth and demographics - the poorest men are most likely to be involuntarily childless

link: BBC article

I'm child-free by choice - but being female, I've always had the comfort of knowing that if I changed my mind, I could have a child by sperm donor, on my own and I'd solve my own problem. (Fertility dependent of course, but in theory). It's up to me, basically.

I've had plenty of discussions with my female friends who want children but are struggling to have them, both those struggling with physical fertility - and single female friends who haven't met the right person at the right time and don't want to do it by themselves.

But I'm ashamed to say that outside of the couples I know undergoing IVF, I've never really thought about childfree-not-by-choice men and what it must be like for them. Particularly single men - who in theory could become fathers but don't have the circumstances. They can't just 'do it by themselves', and they're also not even acknowledged in the statistics.

Do you know any single men who long to be fathers but aren't? Just thought it was interesting.

Vast majority of the time if a man is single and doesn't want to be, it comes down to his personality. I have known unattractive men who have been very successful with women ...they are always incredibly confident and charismatic. I have also know conventionally good looking men who have the personality of a wet jay cloth...they struggle to get women despite being attractive looking. In terms of income...like attracts like...so a low income man probably won't attract the best looking most successful woman...but he will be able to attract a woman on a similar income with similar ambitions or lack of.

Throughout history significantly more women than men have reproduced and the odds have always been in favour of wealthy/powerful men. I guess it would actually be surprising if things evened out in modern times.

Yep.

Myself, my sisters, my SILs and lots of my friends and a few acquaintances have children with a man who earns less than us.

In some cases the man initially earned more but the career trajectory of the woman meant she out earned him by a lot in a few years, while with others the woman always earned more. With acquaintances some of the men have changed jobs to one where they earn less but is more socially responsible.

Regardless the man can actually look after his children and the house. So this means in the case of my SILs, myself and some of my friends we can go away for any reason and know when we come back the children and house will be fine.

This seems like classic Correlation isn’t causation.
Maybe these poor men make bad partners not because they lack money but because they have bad health and bad MH or addictions and other such things. This whole article is just a lot of poor conjecture and anecdotes…

All of the poor men are fathers around here with various levels of involvement.

Yeah also @Greenbike There are lots of ND women, myself included, very happy with my autistic husband and . We tend to date people like us so he'd have an advantage there.
However immature, magical thinking is a major turn-off. Does he even know how much children cost, the work required to raise them, etc?

Unless he's a domestic god (and even then, it's not his body taking the toll of pregnancy). It's probably better for womenkind that he remains single. Until he gets a dose of reality.

Then the men who can get women aren't unattractive, there as the others are.

Thing is though, their fertility doesn't fall off a cliff. So, the men in this article are 30-50 but, all things being equal, they still have the technical opportunity to carry on seeking a partner throughout their entire lives. This is not true for women.

It is so interesting that women in the top socio-economic groups choose not to have children or have lower rates of having children, and that's true in the lowest socio-economic group for men.

It suggests women don't want to have children with poor men, and men don't want to have children with highly ambitious women. As well as their own innate preferences as well of course.

Women usually have the power when it comes to deciding when to have kids: they are the decision makers. A wealthy woman who has chosen not to have children has made that decision herself because there are so, so many ways rich women can become mothers if they want to. Even fertility isn’t really a barrier for women as it can be for men.

There is no correlation there though either.

I know some women who are highly ambitious who definitely don't want their own children in any way.

They have husbands and long term partners who are happy not to have children either.

We also don't describe women who can't or don't want children as 'childless against their will' which is a very emotive way to put it. Childfree, would have preferred children, 'against their will' isn't really a thing, because who knows even if you had a cooperative partner, if you would have had children. It's not like you were banned or anything.

This is true. Someone who's really desperate for children will put off a certain number of potential partners however many they want. Men and women. But if they'd like a big number, that's also shrinking the pool. Not just to people who want a lot, but also people who don't want to start straight away. Because if a woman likes him but she's perhaps 33, that means having kids pretty soon in the relationship, whereas if he'd be happy with two or three that means they can have a couple of years to bed in. So there are likely to be some potential partners put off by the need to start quickly, if that makes sense.

Is it their poverty that means women don’t want to have children with them though…?

If someone was working really hard, had a good work ethic + was making smart life choices. Especially if they’re a fundamentally good guy - I don’t think their poverty is an impediment.

The ‘problem’ is that many women no longer feel they have to marry someone to have a good life (rightly so!) - so men who aren’t making good choices + aren’t nice to women are left on the shelf.

wealth / power certainly insulated some shitty men from this because it makes them attractive to some despite not being kind / hardworking etc

but I think the wider problem society faces is what to do with all the men that no one wants to marry now they don’t have to…

@anxioussister great analysis, and what is fueling incel culture.

but I think the wider problem society faces is what to do with all the men that no one wants to marry now they don’t have to…

Very true!

Ian Mucklejohn ( a millionaire) was the first man in the UK to have surrogate triplets. They are now adults. The last info I can find about them as a family was 2016

I also posted this article in another thread and I find it interesting as it does not chime with my experiences at all. My middle class professional friends are often deciding not to have children or have them later - but all of the perennially unemployed on the dole people I know have multiple kids.

This

I dont agree. There is stats showing that in today's world 10% of the men ( the top 10%, think looks wealth, etc) have 90% of all the sex. (or around those numbers)

So the lower you are on the desirable scale ( ie poor) the less likely you are to have sex (or a girlfriend /wife/whaetver)
Meaning no kids.
Just because you do not know these men does not mean they dont exist. The more sex moved outside of the confines of marriage (ie today' s society) the less men had it. Unforseen but happened.

@Ohhbaby that is just incel style misinformation. Men have similar patterns to women, unless they are gay.

I think it's a bit more subtle than that. The bottom 5% are not people on the minimum wage, working, out on weekends, they are people who have fallen out of regular society mostly, probably as they have issues such as more severe mental health issues, possibly learning difficulties, or have reasons why they don't form relationships (I have a relative like this) which are not easily overcome.

Above that 5% there's a huge swathe of men having children who aren't wealthy by society's standards but are in social circles where they do just fine. We know that big families cluster in the poorer groups and the much wealthier groups, and less so in the middle.

I don't think it's being 'poor' per se that is driving this, because you can bring children up on the breadline and people do, it's being poorer and having other challenging traits or behaviours that mean sustaining the type of long-term relationships likely to lead to marriage and kids don't happen for them.

No, this suggests that women that are highly ambitious do not want children, not that men don't want children with them.
Having children for a woman who does not like her career or have no real ambition to move up in the ranks, does not impact her career. However, a woman who wants to rise and be a high-flying laywer or whatever, for her a child means a few months behind her male peers and she will probably carry most of the sick day leaves for children etc. It has nothing to do with the man. To her, it does not seem like a good value proposition.
How many men would turn down settling down with a highly successful, rich wife? Similarly not many woman would in principle turn down a rich and succesful man.
However ( like you stated) women might in principal turn down a poor man as she does not see it as a good value proposition to have kids with him.

@Ohhbaby I agree, which is why I said their innate preference might be not to have children, but that's not child-free against your will, it's just a function of the fact life is easier without kids, but it's also true (IMO) that many men like to have a wife who is not cleverer or much richer or more successful than themselves- most men prefer to 'match' or slightly date down. Very rich men don't usually date very rich women, they date younger prettier ones. That holds for online dating patterns as well, preferring women who are younger and doing ok money-wise but not exceeding themselves. I'm in this category and I recognise that my 'pool' of men these days is minute because I'm successful and financially well-off and not many men seem able to cope with that, they say things like 'so you are very career-oriented then' as if I'm some kind of workaholic when I'm just a normal working person like them.

But presumably the issue here is not his low income so much as limited social skills. (And the fact that someone who may have above average support needs of his own & a nervous system prone to overwhelm is not necessarily the partner you want to have 4+ children with.)

Plenty of low income / unemployed men father multiple children on the strength of a little bit of charm and charisma. Whether that happens in happy and stable long term relationships is another question.

This would've been my guess too. The research isn't linked to, and some of the terminology in the article is vague. Also worth pointing out that Norway is a soeicty where there's less income inequality amongst people who are working. But all societies have people who can't or won't participate fully, and those people are disproportionately likely to lack access to money.