The Economist reports that based on an analysis of census data the proportion of all women who reach their mid-40s without ever having a child has fallen, but the decline is sharpest among the best-educated women. In 1994, 35% of women with a doctoral degree aged 40 to 44 were childless; by last year, this had fallen to 20%. Their families are bigger, too. In 1994, half of women with a master’s degree had had two more or more children. By last year, the figure was 60%. Why might older, better-educated women be having more children? Partly because access to education has widened—and so women who were always going to have children are spending more time in college. Another reason is that fertility treatment has improved dramatically, and access to that, too, has widened. Older women who, in the past, wanted children but were unable to have them are now able to.
But according to demographer Philip Cohen this does not explain the entire leap. Social changes in the nature of marriage seem to be driving the change. Whereas marriage was once near-universal and unequal, in recent decades it has become a deliberate option and more equal. Well-educated women have been able to form strong relationships with similarly brainy men, in which both parents earn and both do some child care. Getting an education and having a career are no longer always a barrier to having children; sometimes, they make it easier. Also as more career-minded women have had children, they have become powerful enough to demand time off from their employers. Although America has no national system of paid maternity leave, many professional firms now offer paid maternity leave—Ernst & Young, an accountancy firm, offers 39 weeks to its employees, for example. Meanwhile poorer women have had little luck of that sort. "If I’m a lower-income woman," says Stephanie Coontz, "do I want to hitch myself to a guy who may become just another mouth to feed?”
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @10:06AM
OMG! MikeeUSA will not be happy about this, at all! Adult women, having babies? Of their own volition? And most likely without a man's permission! I can just feel his scrotes shrinking into a tiny ball. You know, the Bible says, stone the pedofiles, for they are nasty by anyone's standards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @09:52AM
"stone" "pedofiles"
Maybe your christian new testament after being interpreted by Womans Christian Temperance Movement inspired american protestants.
But the Old Testament thinks differently
Deuteronomy 22 28-29, hebrew.
(If you wish to argue about taphas, here's a refutation of your arguments:
http://pastebin.com/mzFJyxea [pastebin.com] )
No Death for child rapist, as html: http://pastebin.com/CaAwbpbK [pastebin.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @11:29AM
before having the children.
Praise be, the Infidels shall be infertile! Jihad not even needful to rid world of them! Allah Akbar!!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @11:51AM
Hahaha, infidels have science & technology.
Suck it Allah.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Saturday May 30 2015, @12:41PM
And they are havin' autistic babbies... and teaching them to do math in their heads and mess with 'autoexec.bat' so you shut down yo' mamma's computer, but were intelligent enough to do a backup of it so you could recover it.
And then the wee little babbie eventually meets an intelligent woman of his own (awwwww!! so cute... and boobies!... oh, and smart too!) and they have a wee little preemie babbie who is also autistic, but at least he now sleeps better (but not great) and the school system thinks he's (the R word, which you are not allowed to even spell out now-adays, 'cause... it's bad... Retarded are bad, m'kay?) until they are shown he actually has a brain but because he doesn't talk well, they have to learn how to communicate with him in other ways (thank you Ray Kurzweil) and now they are using him as a showcase for what could be (because you threaten them with 'what... you are not including him? Isn't inclusion the big thing in the Ontario curriculum??????' thing) and now he doesn't have to sit and listen to an old man playing guitar for 45 minutes and is actually doing English and will next year be doing Science and Math................................
That's it... have yo' wee little babbies, intelligent people. But be afraid. Be very afraid.
The school system is waiting... oh, yes, it is waiting and it is prepared to fight you. You must bear the weight, the burden and fight on!
You shall fight on the beaches, you shall fight on the landing grounds, you shall fight in the fields and in the streets, you shall fight in the hills; you shall never surrender!
Or stop bumpin' your intelligent uglies and sit on your computer and jack it.
(Mmmmm... jackin' it... just jackin' it.... in the DANGER ZONE!!)
Hmm... humour and real-life... and Archer! Now, where did i put my towel and bottle of Glengoolie Blue?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @08:22PM
Are those herbs legal in your state?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @02:20PM
I thought Ethanol Fueled had logged into another account on accident and forgot to change his persona.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Jiro on Saturday May 30 2015, @03:31PM
On another site I saw a really good explanation of this: It's an early adopter effect. If you encourage women to go into higher education, the population you will get doing so will be bigger, but also less dedicated than the early adopters who didn't need any encouragement. Women who don't want families are disproportionately likely to become early adopters because getting an advanced degree and having that kind of career is not very compatible with having children. Now that the women who get such degrees are less dedicated, a smaller proportion of them will be of the type who prioritizes career over family.
So although more such women are having families, it doesn't imply that having a family and a career has become any easier.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by btendrich on Saturday May 30 2015, @04:24PM
Isn't this another way to say that women who have children are more likely to have a higher level of education? Children aside, aren't women now more likely to have a higher education now than 20 years ago?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @08:01PM
I feel the same way about getting a wife. Does anyone have any data on the spending power of well-educated women? Last I bothered to check for the general population, the average woman spends all of her income and about 35% of her husband's too. It certainly doesn't feel like men make more when they don't get to spend it. Hopefully this news about well-educated women is a sign that things actually are slowly becoming equal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @08:25PM
It's tough being a woman. You need at least 30 pairs of shoes (usually two new pairs a month) and most of them let rain in so you need special ones for going out when it rains. Also, you can't wear the same dress twice, so they're effectively one-shot disposable clothing. That is why women spend so much money. If you think about it, women really should be paid more than men. It's so expensive being female.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @05:10AM
Once again the assumption is that someone with a degree is necessarily more educated. A shame to see this lazy mentality here.