Apparently in 2030, 45% of women ages 25–44 will be single and childfree. Do you think this will happen?

[YouAreNotBatman]

https://medium.com/hello-love/study-predicts-45-of-women-will-be-single-by-2030-1fbc99bad6a8

Came across this article.
And as much as I (single/childfree woman) would like this to be true, just so there would be more like-minded people and the stigma of being single and childfree woman would lessen.

I really don’t think this is going to happen.
Most people are still higgly conventional and traditions seem to stick in strong.

And also: putting young age 25 is jist silly, by the next 5-10 years most of those women will be married/have kids.
And what I’ve seen happening in dating life is that labels have changed, but it’s still the same old, same old.
Many insist they are ’casual’ or have areagment or new word for dating, but they are basically just plain old dating/in a relationship.

Western women, maybe. A lot to them have drank the “useless eaters” koolaid.

an increasing number of women I know are choosing to have children without a partner, having them in their early 40's , but also many of my lesbian and gay friends are having families now too, including myself. so i think there will just be a more accepted change in the types of people having children. and less people staying in unhappy relationships.

There always 'a number of studies' to try and 'prove' single women are happier than married women. I wonder why that is? Neither myself or anyone I have ever known has EVER been asked or interviewed, or taken part in any 'study' about who is 'happier.'

Those 'figures' mean nothing. I was single until I was 24, and have been married for over 20 years now, and I bloody love it. Being married is way preferable to being single ANY time, for me, and many women I know. Some single women I know are pretty miserable, not well off, and struggling financially all the time, and working all the hours God sends to keep a roof over their head. The married women I know work part time, or are stay-at-home-mums, and have a lovely comfortable life.

Anecdata just like yours. I am sure lots of single women are chuffed to ribbons to be on their own. Many are not. Why do you think so many do so much online dating? Many single women are secretly hoping they will meet 'the one' some day. Very few people want to be single permanently. SOME are very content with it. SOME are not.

I reiterate. It's bollocks that single women are happier than married women. There's happy and unhappy in both. And it's always single women who spout this 'single women are sooo much happier than married women' line too.

Anyone would think they are trying to convince themselves.

You do you. Stay single by all means. I will stay married.

Not being funny, but I do get so fucked off with the 'all married women are weak, downtrodden slaves who hate their lives, and all single women are strong, happy and free, and loving life' mantra. It pisses me off. And it's not true.

Eh? My kids are young adults. I had them when climate change did not look as depressing as it does now. I also had them when the CoL wasn't as acute and when the cost of living wasnt so high. Both Dh and I are high earners. DD is in a creative profession which she enjoys but won't earn much money in.

Really odd that you are so pressed about this.

I think you're right in that the age brackets are pretty meaningless. It also says single women, not women without children, and they're two very different things - most of my friends who have been divorced also have children, they're just now single too! The studies are also fully American, which is a very different country in terms of support for having a family, I don't think the results would be the same in the UK.

There is a definite correlation between wealth, education and access to good healthcare including contraception and abortion, and having less children and there being more childfree by choice women. It'll be interesting to see if the slow eroding of abortion rights changes that graph again, I foresee more and more barriers to women being in the workplace - COVID was just the beginning of that! There's a definite pushback that's really hurting women everywhere.

Ugh, I repeated CoL twice. I meant when childcare wasn't so high.

@catchthedog Yes, I also know several single women who’ve chosen to have children. No denying that it’s hard work and the ones I know couldn’t manage without significant family support. It’s still easier than sharing children with a useless/unpleasant ex though.

This is based on an American survey, so not a prediction for the UK, although personally I think we’d get to that point before they do.

Single means 'not married', it does not mean alone. And more 35+ women are having children for the first time, so it's unsurprising that most of the workforce will be childless with delayed motherhood.

Supposedly 1-4% of women over 40 are childless. The media has always exaggerated how many women are childless, more women than ever have children. Historically, something like 1 in 4 died childless.

Some single women I know are pretty miserable, not well off, and struggling financially all the time, and working all the hours God sends to keep a roof over their head. The married women I know work part time, or are stay-at-home-mums, and have a lovely comfortable life.

I have to say I agree. I'm well-suited to being single but my life is an absolute endless cycle of drudgery and financial worry. The married parents I work with have much more comfortable lives. I don't want kids but being part of a DINK would be really bloody nice.

both of my children could have written that I would say, both in their 30s neither of them are having children.

Unbelievable isn’t it.

Should clarify *came to the end of their reproductive years childless, so 45+. It was not a result of dying prematurely, many women genuinely did not marry or have children. People seem to think 'single childfree women' is a modern thing.

I'm a bit confused by the term 'single' here, do they mean 'non-married'? I was 'single' throughout my twenties and early thirties, but I had relationships and wasn't short of company, having lots of friends as well.

If single means not in a relationship, and no kids, that's different than being 'single' in a looser sense of not married but you might still be having FWB/relationships along the way.

I think men might be less willing to commit to marriage without there being children in the marriage, it's harder for them to maintain the upper hand if the female partner can match or out do them in earnings.

I see this as highly likely

I am not scoffing @Thesharkradar I hope you’re right
🙏@bluebeck

@babychoice

I did not know this!
How fascinating.
Extraordinary women, I wonder what it was like for them back in the days, I mean it’s not easy these day, so it had to be hard back then.
What timeline was this?
Is there anywhere I can find reading on this?

I think as women go forward and are self financing through careers they can choose to marry and have a family or not . Not everyone wants either option and can do as they wish . Women dont have to settle for any old man now whereas my mum tells me in her generation she felt left in the shelf at 18.
I also think it's tragic when a woman stays with an awful man because she feels she cannot support herself or lacks confidence to make a change .
Choice is wonderful

Just because you haven’t been asked and are happier married, doesn’t mean all these studies are bollocks! Why on earth would you think all women are the same as you?

And as much as I (single/childfree woman) would like this to be true, just so there would be more like-minded people and the stigma of being single and childfree woman would lessen.

I guess some people may experience this but it isn't mine. I've felt no "stigma" for being single and childfree and I suspect that this trope gets trotted out more than it actually happens.

@YouAreNotBatman

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/06/opinion/women-without-children-history.html

Bit defensive there aren't we?

That was my mum's biggest piece of advice to me growing up too! She was an incredible mother, the best, but she had kids and was married when she was barely an adult herself, as was the way in those days. She'd have had a wonderful life childfree I think if things had been different (though selfishly I'm very glad to be here). She used to say to me 'don't have kids'.

I'm male. I have always privately held, and occasionally voiced, the opinion that if a man isn't settled with a partner and children by age 40, he doesn't want to be. Unless someone is very unusual in appearance or very introverted, there will have been opportunities.

"The 40-Year-old-Virgin" is a rom-com, a genre aimed at women and which typically targets a stereotypical female fantasy. In this case the fantasy is that a man who reached physical maturity over two decades ago, who is confident enough to work in sales and isn't fat or ugly or unhygienic, just hasn't found the right woman yet to unlock his repressed sexual self and when she does come along, he will blossom.

That doesn't represent reality. My experience of single 40yo men is that they are inclined to be selfish, and find relationships draining because they really just wanted the fun bits without feeling responsible for another person. Probably very similar to single women.