Professional Women Choosing to Remain Childless

by Marian Schembari (New York City)

In the past ten years, the number of women who choose to remain childless has practically doubled. According to an article published last month in the Telegraph, the tides are turning as it used to be poverty and low marriage rates that contributed to childlessness. Today, women with higher education, social class and professional qualifications are more likely to actively choose not to have children. 

And the numbers are going up. Research done by the Office for National Statistics (UK) shows that healthy women who are sexually active, living with long-term partners are the ones to decide not to become mothers. Apparently, 25% of women who are university educated remain childless by age 40. They also found that women in more skilled professions were four times less likely to have kids than women in more unskilled jobs.

 Based on what we know, why would successful women continue choosing to have children if the detriments to their career are so unavoidable and widespread? The pay gap in the United States has wavered steadily around 73%, but that gap widens as women give birth. Maternity leave, inflexible schedules, a need to be home by 5:00, sick days, you name it, all contribute to a less successful career if a woman wants to be both a good mother and a successful professional.  

So instead of having to make the impossible sacrifices a professional mother is usually forced to make, many women are now choosing to opt out. Based on the ONS research, one in five single women in England are now making that choice, deciding to more fully pursue their careers instead of “settling down.” 

But it seems that it is not women making these huge sacrifices in order to be successful professionally; many of these women didn’t have much of a desire for kids in the first place. Andrea Negroni of BuckleySandler says her decision to remain childless was based on a number of factors. Most importantly, she didn’t want kids, and her thriving career as an attorney just reinforced that decision. Things were going so well that she never looked back. She says she “might have been more tempted [to change my mind] if I had less life satisfaction, but I was fully satisfied with both my life and career. At 30, my career was quite busy – too busy to contemplate what I would have done with children had I had them.” 

What’s unfortunate is that there is often a negative attitude towards these women – either out of judgment or jealousy. Andrea pointed out that many women envy her free time, commenting on how they wish they could ________ (read the paper, travel to Paris). “I’ve found that people who take the time to comment have been more envious than critical. I think there’s a greater level of dissatisfaction with parenthood than what is widely perceived to be the case.” 

Despite Andrea’s positive experience, other women and often employers see childless women as cold. The Telegraph posted an article back in May about how not having children can ruin your career. The author (Laura Clark) wrote, “Some employers feel female staff who don’t want children lack an ‘essential humanity.’”  To make the situation even more complicated, if you reach a certain age and don’t have children, your boss may think you plan on having children soon and can be denied promotions because of this assumption. Which of course is our catch-22: if you have children, it’s hard to get ahead at work due to personal constraints. If you don’t, well, you’re heartless. 

Clearly, the experience really differs from woman to woman. Often, remaining childless can give a big boost to your career. Not having to run out during lunch to bring your kid an extra pair of pants at school or being able to work until 8:00 when you have to can help in the long run. Being able to devote time to your chosen profession (especially if you’re in a male-dominated field) makes you better at what you do and shows 100% commitment. On the other hand, a woman who doesn’t want kids can be seen as unnatural, preventing her from moving forward. 

The thing is, there’s not really a solution to this problem. Even in this day and age, successful working women have to make difficult choices. We’re still few and far between and while some women may be amazing role models for “doing it all,” we can’t all be that lucky.