A first-ever report of its kind released in August of 2021 by the U.S. Census Bureau shows 15.2 million, nearly 1 in 6 (16.5%), adults age 55 and older are childless, and the levels of childlessness among older adults are expected to increase.
The fact that the U.S. population is rapidly getting older is common knowledge; now aging research increasingly focuses on the wellbeing and care of older people. The U.S. Census Bureau data show that the vast majority of older people with a disability reside at home. It is estimated that, upon turning age 65, over half of individuals can expect the need for someone to help them with activities of daily living or will require supervision for at least 90 days or longer.
Changes in family dynamics have taken place alongside the aging of the population, such as declines in marriage and fertility, and increases in cohabitation, divorce, and childlessness, have important implications for the pool of potential caregivers available to adults as they age. According to a 2016 study, about 22 percent of adults are or will be their own sole caregiver in old age. Such adults have no known family member or designated surrogate or caregiver they can count on for support.
In the United States, much of the care for older generations falls to their children, so when an individual does not have any children, the burden of their care often falls to themselves or to the state. Childlessness is not a new phenomenon in the United States, but has increased among women born between 1910 and 1914, whose childbearing years overlapped with the Great Depression, before dramatically declining during the Baby Boomers. However, unlike childlessness in the early 1900s, the recent rise in childlessness is occurring in tandem with the aging of the population and smaller family sizes, calling into question the available supports for the growing older population.
HOW MANY OLDER ADULTS ARE CHILDLESS?
Childless adults make up a sizable portion of the older adult population in the United States. Of the 92.2 million older adults 55 years and older in 2018, 15.2 million (16.5 percent) are childless. Men are more likely to be childless at the age of 55 and older than women—18.2 percent of older men are childless, compared to 15.0 percent of older women.
Levels of childlessness have increased among recent cohorts of women. This pattern is reflected when examining childlessness by age group—childlessness is more prevalent among those who are 55 to 64 years old compared to those who are in older age groups.
For instance, 19.6 percent of all adults aged 55 to 64 are childless, compared to 15.9 percent of those aged 65 to 74, and 10.9 percent of those 75 years and older. As such, we expect that levels of childlessness among the oldest adults will increase in the future as the younger cohorts age into their later years. For example, 10.6 percent of those aged 55 to 64 are childless men, and 9.0 percent are childless women. This compares with just 4.9 percent of those 75 years and older who are childless men, and 5.9 percent who are childless women.
Highlights include:
Of all adults ages 55 to 64, 19.6% were childless, compared to 15.9% of those ages 65 to 74, and 10.9% of those 75 years and older.
About 22.1 million adults 55 years and older live alone, among whom 6.1 million were childless. This means that 27.7% of older adults who lived alone were childless. Childlessness was more common among older men living alone than among older women; 34.3% of older men and 23.6% of older women living alone were childless.
Living alone is more common among older adults who were childless than their counterparts who were parents. About 62.5% of parents 55 years and older lived with a spouse, compared to 40.2% of childless older adults.
Poverty rates are higher among childless older adults than they are among older parents. About 12.4% of childless adults had family incomes below the poverty line. Among parents, a greater share of mothers had family incomes below the poverty line (10.5%) than fathers (7.5%).
The report refers to childless adults as those who have no biological children; parents as those who have biological children; and older adults refers to those 55 years and older.
SIPP is a nationally representative panel survey administered by the Census Bureau that collects information on the short-term dynamics of employment, income, household composition, and eligibility and participation in government assistance programs. This report was supported in part by the National Institute on Aging. The report Childless Older Americans: 2018 uses data from the 2018 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to examine the circumstances, potential caregiving and financial support from family and the community, and health and well-being of childless older adults. The report also compares these characteristics to those of biological parents of the same age group.
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