Voluntary childlessness or childfreeness is the choice to neither conceive nor adopt children. Use of the word childfree was first recorded in 1901 and entered common usage among second-wave feminists in the 1970s. The suffix -free refers to freedom and personal choice to choose not to have children.
The availability of reliable birth control, the desire for greater financial security, increased life expectancy, and the ability to rely on one's own savings have made voluntary childlessness more common.
Reasons and challenges Reasons for being childfree depend on the individual. These can be personal, social, philosophical, moral, economic, or a combination thereof.
Fear or lack of interest Some people simply dislike children's behavior, language, or biological processes. Others may experience fear or revulsion towards the physical condition of pregnancy (tokophobia), and the childbirth experience.
Adverse childhood experiences Some people who have suffered child abuse by their own parents have decreased interest in being a parent or proliferating their family's genes. They may also fear the continuation of the cycle of abuse or other defects in parenting styles.
Other caretaking responsibilities Some childfree people wish to spend time with the children in their family, or to provide childcare and babysitting services. Some also take care of elderly parents.
Taking care of a pet might also be chosen in lieu of having children. In South Korea, young couples in the 2010s were more likely to have pets than children. The phrase "fur baby" was first introduced in the 1990s and steadily became more commonplace afterwards as millennials came of age.
Medical concerns Some childfree people carry genetic disorders, have a mental illness, or are otherwise too sick for parenthood. Even among healthy couples, new parents are often sleep-deprived.
Pregnancy and childbirth might come with complications and lasting effect on personal health, including, but not limited to, weight gain, hemorrhoids, urinary incontinence, accelerated cellular aging, and even death. Substantial neurological changes in both parents during and following pregnancy could lead to feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, or postpartum depression.
Economic factors
Cost The cost of raising a child may impact a person's decision to have a child. A lack of adequate support for working mothers is a major concern for women.
Childfree people might prioritize their career, retiring early, making charitable donations, having more leisure, or being more active in their community. For many people, children would be considered a distraction, an unwanted expenditure, or an undesirable commitment. Some find themselves too exhausted with work to be parents.
Pensions Many countries have a pay-as-you-go pension system which depends on the total fertility rate to be sustainable. For these pension systems, low fertility rates due to voluntary childlessness results in lower pensions, higher pension contributions, higher retirement ages, or a pension crisis. Higher pension contributions by voluntary childless individuals increases the sustainability of pay-as-you-go pension systems, such as in the German long-term care insurance. A German 2014 opinion poll found higher pension contributions by childless people was voted in favor of by 76.7%.
Taxes Tax laws in some countries differentiate by number of children, for example a tax on childlessness. Some have also questioned the fairness of tax credits for parents (such as the Earned Income Tax Credit in the United States), paid parental leave, and public education.
Ideology
Members of the countercultural or feminist movements in the 1960s and 1970s typically had no children. Some feminists consider the traditional family as "a decadent, energy-absorbing, destructive, wasteful institution." Similarly, in China, women have become much less interested in marriage and children, viewing these as burdens.
Another school of thought known as antinatalism asserts that it is inherently immoral to bring people into the world. In their view, refraining from reproduction is an act of compassion for the unborn. Since parents can never secure the consent of their unborn child, the decision to procreate would be an imposition of life, a source of suffering, and a form of narcissism.
Environmental concerns
Having fewer children or no children at all drastically reduces one's carbon emissions compared to other methods such as owning a fuel-efficient car or avoiding air travel. A subset of environmentalists opposes anthropocentrism and supports deep ecology. Some even call for voluntary human extinction, viewing it as an act of empathy. In their opinion, human existence inflicts harm not just upon humans themselves but also other species via predatory practices.
Some have argued that the conscientiousness of childfree environmentalists is self-eliminating since they only aid in the deterioration of concern for the environment and future generations, though this argument assumes that attitudes are heritable.
High expectations of parents
Modern societies often have high expectations of parents, which some people consider distasteful. In English, the (pejorative) term "soccer mom" is used to described women obsessed with being mothers. In general, as a society becomes better developed, it is generally true that parental investment per child goes up, causing fertility rates to go down. In countries where having children out of wedlock is either highly unusual or socially ostracized, such as China, having trouble getting married is a reason why most choose to not have children.
Traditions It is traditionally held that womanhood must include motherhood and caregiving. Even during the 21st century, these responsibilities fall largely on women. Historically, it has been a social taboo to discuss the negative aspects of pregnancy and childbirth, or to express regret for having had children, making it more challenging for the childfree to defend their decision. A number of religions—including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—place a high value on children and their central place in marriage. There are some debates within religious groups about whether a childfree lifestyle is acceptable. Another view, for example, is that the biblical verse "Be fruitful and multiply" in Genesis 1:28, is not a command but an expression of blessing.
Alternatively, some Christians believe that Genesis 1:28 is a moral command but nonetheless believe that voluntary childlessness is ethical if a higher ethical principle intervenes to make child bearing imprudent in comparison. Health concerns, a calling to serve orphans, serving as missionaries in a dangerous location, etc., are all examples that would make childbearing imprudent for a Christian.
Social pressure People who express the fact that they have voluntarily chosen to remain childfree are frequently subjected to discrimination or pressure to change their minds. The decision not to have children has been derided as "unnatural" or attributed to insanity, and frequently childfree people are subjected to unsolicited questioning by friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances and even strangers who attempt to force them to justify and/or change their decision, for example, during holiday family gatherings.
Some women interviewed by the BBC have argued that revealing their decision to not have children was akin to coming out as gay in the mid-20th century, while others avoided such conversations to avoid social pressure to change their decision. Childfree women might be told to first have a child before deciding whether or not they do not want one, to "hurry up" and lower their standards for suitable men, that they would make good mothers, that they have not yet met the "right" man, or are assumed to be infertile rather than having made a conscious decision not to make use of their fertility. Many parents pressure their children into producing grandchildren and threaten to or actually disown them if they do not.
Some childfree people are accused of hating all children instead of just not wanting any themselves even though they might still be willing to help others rear their children. When seeking approval to be sterilized, some childfree individuals, especially women, might face intrusive questions from skeptical doctors or be dismissed completely in case they regret the decision. Some doctors ask their unmarried female patients the hypothetical question of them meeting men who want children or tell married women to first seek permission from their husbands.
While parents are generally warmer towards other parents, childfree individuals are neutral towards each other. With being uninterested in having children as the only thing in common, childfree people generally find it more challenging to organize for a social or political cause, with the possible exception of when they, as voters, are collectively threatened with discriminatory policies or the loss of family-planning resources.
While the idea of a childfree flight has become popular in the 2020s, with individuals even willing to pay extra, it is unlikely to be instituted by a major airline for reasons of public relations, regulations, and profit. On the other hand, this is not an issue for certain other venues, such as restaurants.
Most societies place a high value on parenthood in adult life, so that people who remain childfree are sometimes stereotyped as selfish, self-absorbed, or unwilling to take on responsibility. As Rebecca Solnit explains in her book The Mother of All Questions (2017), "The problem may be a literary one: we are given a single story line about what makes a good life, even though not a few who follow that story line have bad lives. We speak as though there is one good plot with one happy outcome, while the myriad forms a life can take flower—and wither—all around us."
Some are deemed too career-focused, although this is not necessarily true. In line with policies of family-friendliness, governments and employers typically offer support for parents, even though people without children might have to care for invalid, disabled, or elderly dependents, commitments that entail significant financial and emotional costs. The "life" aspect of the work-life balance is often taken to mean parenting. Non-parents, including the childfree, are thus assumed to be career-focused and willing to work extra time, which is not necessarily the case. What they do with their free time is not considered as important.
As such, childless individuals often work longer hours than parents. In fact, both parents and non-parents tend to think that parents are generally treated better at work. Some parents argue that they deserve special treatment for raising future workers and taxpayers. During the summer, requests for vacation leave from parents are typically approved quickly while the childfree are generally expected to stay behind to cover the workload. To alleviate friction and to maintain goodwill, some employers have offered everyone paid leave at the same time. More broadly, some human-resources departments and managers have introduced paid time off (PTO) to replace the traditional paid family leave, paid sick leave, or paid vacation leave.
In November 2024, Russia's legislative body, the Duma, voted unanimously to ban "childfree propaganda" to boost birthrates in the country. Russia is the first nation in the world to pass such a law.
Politics