According to the new report, over 20 percent of women between the ages of 40 to 44 do not have children, an increase from the 10 percent that was recorded 30 years ago.
“A lot of women are not having any children,” said Jane Lawler Dye, a Census Bureau researcher who did the report, according to the New York Times. “It used to be sort of expected that there was a phase of life where you had children, and a lot of women aren’t doing that now,”
For the women who do have children, the numbers still rank below that of 30 years ago. According to the report, women between 40 to 44 years old have an average of 1.9 children. In 1976 the average number of children per woman was 3.1.
The study also found that women with advanced degrees are more likely to be childless.
Of the women between 40 and 44 years old, 27 percent are childless compared to only 18 percent in women who did not continue their education beyond high school.
However, the study found that Hispanic women have a higher number of children in the same age group. In 2006, the average number born was 2.3, higher than that of white, black or Asian women.
Despite being higher than the national average, the number of children born to a Hispanic woman is also sharply decreasing. Data from the report showed a decreased number of children born to each generation of Hispanics in the U.S.
Of the women between the ages of 15 and 44, a large percentage was found to have two or less children. Twenty-two percent were reported to have two children and 17 percent had only one. Eleven percent of the women had three and 6 percent had four or more children. Of the different ethnicities, the study found a larger portion, 62 percent, of Hispanic women bearing one or more children compared to black, white or Asian women.
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