WASHINGTON, June 25 -- Nearly one in five American women end their childbearing years without having borne a child, compared with one in 10 in the 1970s, according to a Pew Research Center report released on Friday.
Based on the Census Bureau's statistics, the report uses the standard measure of childlessness at the end of childbearing years, which is the share of women ages 40 to 44 who have not borne any children.
Overall, the proportion of women ages 40 to 44 who have not borne a child grew from 10 percent in 1976 to 18 percent in 2008, with the total number rose from nearly 580,000 to 1.9 million.
"Social pressure to bear children appears to have diminished for women and that today the decision to have a child is seen as an individual choice," the report said when explaining the rise in childless rate. "Improved job opportunities and contraceptive methods help create alternatives for women who choose not to have children."
"At the same time, there has been a general trend toward delayed marriage and childbearing, especially among highly educated women. Given that the chance of a successful pregnancy declines with age, some women who hope to have children never will, despite the rise in fertility treatments that facilitate pregnancy, " the report added.
The research found that among women ages 40 to 44, there are equal numbers of women who are childless by choice and those who would like children but cannot have them.
Pew also emphasized that the most educated women still are among the most likely never to have had a child, but the rates have come down sharply.
In 2008, 24 percent of women ages 40 to 44 with a master's, doctoral or professional degree had not had children, a decline from 31 percent in 1994. In the meantime, childlessness has risen sharply for women with less than a high school diploma -- from 9 percent in 1994 to 15 percent in 2008.
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