To wonder why more Men are childless than Women?

[Sunnysideup37]

I’ve been doing some research recently in population statistics and I have comes across the statistics that a quarter more men are childless at 45-50 than women. But I don’t fully understand why. The gender gap in society is no where near that? I am starting to wonder if those figures are an overcount because many men are not officially registered as a father to their kids when a woman can’t avoid being in the records for giving birth

Because some men father a lot of children. Humans don't have the skew anything like on the scale of sheep or deer, but there's enough of that type of bloke to show an effect.

And some men are determined not to be fathers in a way that is rare to see in women. My x bf used to joke that he had a vasectomy with his confirmation money. I've never come across a woman so certain, so young.

@OpheliaThrupps

Men are much more likely to be gay then women would be my guess.

What. The. Fuck. Are you for real? Where's the science to prove this?

Well, without being aware of statistics, that seems true. I seem to meet more gay men than gay women. Everywhere I go, there are a couple of gay men. Every job. Every large group.

Are gay women more inclined to hide it? I'm 51 so I'm sure my observations are dated compared to the observations of a 21 year old.

But it's been my experience whether somebody says ''what. the. fuck.''' or not.

Whether there's a difference in the percentage of gay men vs lesbian women, it's possible for the latter to become mothers relatively easily, sometimes using sperm donors who may be the biological father of many children.

Girls are pressured at very young age to become mothers, constantly have a message to have kids (otherswise your life has no meaning, don’t be dangerous woman who thinks for herself, scaring about fertility - men can have kids at older age, but their sperm quality drops at 35-40 , so they can but really shouldn’t have kids when they are older).
Men don’t get these messages, they’re not deemed useless or failures if they don’t have kids.

Also a lot of women want/believe in happy endings and think kids (and a man) will bring them this.

A surprising number of men as asexual as well as gay, also many gay women have had children along the way, looking back through my family history a surprising number of men never married, even after the various wars when men were is short supply.

I think it's quite likely that a large minority of the least attractive men struggle to find anyone willing to have sex with them at all. Many women would rather re-use an average man (who has an earlier family) than a well-below-average one. It's easier for men to have multiple families. It would be statistically possible for women to all have above-average men to father their children. We could neuter all the below average ones and encourage the rest to do two shifts, 20-40 first family, 40 to 60 second. I suspect there would be some men and women who would agree to a 60-80 third shift as well. Of course, if you don't require men to hang around for most of each childhood, you could fit in even more shifts...

Obviously census data is always compromised by the potential of one person filling it in on behalf of a house hold, people not wanting to disclose etc
But. ......

In 2019, the proportion of men identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) increased from 2.5% to 2.9% (754,000) and women identifying as LGB rose from 2.0% to 2.5% (677,000) (see Figure 2). Men (2.1%) were almost twice as likely than women (1.1%) to identify as gay or lesbian. Conversely, women (1.4%) were more likely than men (0.8%) to identify as bisexual. This represents a continuation of trends observed since 2014.

There's isn't a huge difference just women are more likely to identify as bi (and possibly be in a relationship with a man that is more likely to have children than a same sex relationship)

Apologies its not census data as they've only just agreed to add to the census

There's interesting things about age too, younger women (who are yet to have children) have a much higher identity of lgb

In my experience the women I know that came out 35 + were far more likely to have had children then the men who came out later
That's only my experience and the plural of anecdote isn't data

@Wedonttalkabout The UK censuses are held once a decade in years ending with 1, so that is simply a survey, and would depend entirely on the demographic included and how the data was collected.

@CupOfNiceTea

Girls are pressured at very young age to become mothers, constantly have a message to have kids (otherswise your life has no meaning, don’t be dangerous woman who thinks for herself, scaring about fertility - men can have kids at older age, but their sperm quality drops at 35-40 , so they can but really shouldn’t have kids when they are older). Men don’t get these messages, they’re not deemed useless or failures if they don’t have kids.

Also a lot of women want/believe in happy endings and think kids (and a man) will bring them this.

I’m not sure, some people do think men are shallow commitment-phobes, or just lacking in some basic manly quality, if they are upfront about not wanting kids. I remember George Clooney getting a lot of stick in his footloose and fancy free days.

According to most research asexually is actually more common among Women through of course that might be skewed slightly by Asexual Women being more willing to acknowledge themselves to researchers. The only person I know who is openly asexual is a man.

But I do know more males who have simply chosen to never have relationships or kids than females who have done so

'To wonder why more men are childless than women...'

They're not though are they?

For every mum there's a dad.

Or am I a bit thick? don't answer that!

@blacksax yes of course. Any survey is reliant on self reporting being accurate and people feeling comfortable in filling it out reflectively, the census is slightly worse as it only needs one household member to fill in so a mother for example could be filling in for people who would happily identify themselves if asked privately or amongst but mum doesn't ask, or they aren't out to parents. I'm in a same sex relationship, my mum knows and is coming to the wedding but I would bet my life that my mum would get all sorts of shame about ticking the right box if I lived at home, and actually would put me down as something either to make herself feel better or as a lesbian out of ignorance that's not actually how I identify. Let alone people who's husbands are filling it out, teens who's dad's are etc

I believe last year's was the first year where it was asked on the census and the data isn't out for that yet I think

So this is all just on surveys

Because men are more able to walk away from children and refer to themselves as childless. I know two men who consider themselves not to have children and do. It's just another tax that comes out of their paycheck that they try to avoid.

@BearOfEasttown

It could be that 3 women have children by the same man, then a same sex couple have a child by a donor, one woman is a single parent by a donor or a non involved parent who maybe doesn't know of the child.

That gives you 6 mums, and one dad and a donor who I imagine wouldn't click they have children

@BearOfEasttown

'To wonder why more men are childless than women...'

They're not though are they?

For every mum there's a dad.

Or am I a bit thick? don't answer that!

But it doesn’t necessarily follow that for every dad, there’s a mum - or rather, just one mum. If a man has kids by two different women, but both women only had children with him, there are twice as many mothers as fathers in the scenario. All you have to do is extend that fairly common scenario to a much larger scale.

@BearOfEasttown
Not neccesarily, If you had 5 men and 5 women. And one man impregnated 5 women. You'd have 4 childless men, but no childless women.

So, statistically, one man is father to the children of several women. So fewer dads than mums in the country. Plus, there will be another few men who don’t even know they are dads, but mums know very well when they’ve had a baby!

Girls from a young age
Conditioned to be mothers
No pressure for boys

Because there men fathering children with multiple women.

And then there are men not having children.

And there is the very obvious reason that a man can't do it on his own as he can't get pregnant.

Of course..

Of course...

Thanks for the explanations folks. I didn't really think it through.

Turns out I'm a bit thick! (Well.........., I prefer crap at maths!)