Kimberly is an East-Asian woman in her late thirties, married, childless. Her native language is Taishanese, one of the lesser-known Chinese dialects. Kimberly is highly educated and speaks English with no accent. She and her husband, both on career tracks in the private sector, have made the choice not to have any children. After 2 years of marriage, Kimberly receives a call from her mother, who lives in Chinatown and rarely leaves that enclave.
“Kim, my daughter,“ her mother says in Taishanese “I know you are too shy to confide in me, but I can tell that you have trouble conceiving. Do not despair, I am here to help. There are Chinese herbs that I can get for you that will do the job and you will have a baby“.
Kimberly laughs: “Doctor, how can I explain to my mother that I have no maternal instinct?” Kimberly and her husband are certainly not an exception. They belong to a large number of millennials (and Gen Z couples) so significant to merit an acronym: “DINK”: “Dual Income No Kids“.
Who are the “DiNK” and what brings them to make this historical, counter-intuitive choice?
They are generally highly accomplished young people, who, burdened by stratospheric college/graduate School debt, in addition to sky-high current rents, may be frightened by the prospective cost of raising a child. When asked in polls about why they don’t want to procreate, most answer “It’s too expensive, it will cut into our life style “. Others may even put the blame on the baby boomers, their parents : “They were too busy with work to come to our soccer practices and school plays, we felt abandoned, we don’t want to do the same to our children”.
Recent studies show that “27% of adults in the United States choose not to have children. The birth rate in the United States is the lowest in 35 years. It can be normal for men, women, and people of any gender to choose to remain childless “
Globally the natality rate is 1.6 children/woman, with the lowest countries in the spectrum being Japan and Croatia – whereas 2.1 is the rate needed for population maintenance.
In March 2024, Lancet, a highly regarded British medical journal, published a widely publicized article by the daunting title: “Dramatic declines in global fertility rates set to transform global population patterns by 2100”
These statistics give you pause, if you consider the social and economic consequences and implications they may have for the future generations.
An aging and decreasing population will mean a smaller number of people entering the work force and able to pay for the ever- thinning social security programs. These issues should be front and center in the political discussion, as provisions and planning should be made now for the survival of our future generations.
