newswire: 9/18/2020
- In the UK, the number of older women without children is set to triple by 2045. Since adult children are the group most likely to provide informal care to adults age 80 and over, this sets the stage for a huge increase in demand in paid care that will be difficult to meet. (Office of National Statistics)
- NH: A new report by the UK’s Office of National Statistics forecasts that the number of elderly women without children will skyrocket in the next twenty-five years. They expect that by 2045 there will be over 66,000 childless women over age 80. For comparison, there were only 23,000 in 2019.
- Who are these women? They were born in the 1960s and are now in their 50s. Of this group, one in five is childless.
- Starting with the 1920 birth cohort, the share of women without children fell steadily by birth year until the mid-1940s. The share then reversed and increased until its peak in the early 1960s. Bottom line: A UK woman born in 1965 is twice as likely to be childless than a woman born in 1945.
- This pattern isn't unique to the UK. Roughly the same changes happened in America, though not quite to such an extreme extent. Childlessness fell, first cohort to last, among the Silent Generation. And childlessness rose, first cohort to last, among Boomers--nearly doubling, from 9% to 17%. The result, in America, will be a similar surge of elderly women 80+ without children starting in the early 2030s.
- So why did these women not have children? There is evidence that some of the rise in childlessness may be due to rising rates of involuntary infertility by birth cohort (due for example to falling testosterone and sperm levels among men or to a rising incidence of PCOS among women). Such fertility obstacles, on the other hand, would have to be balanced against medical advances in fertility treatment.
- A more important driver of rising childlessness from first- to last-cohort Boomers is the timing of the cultural and sexual revolution. It happened in the late '60s and '70s--just as these cohorts were coming of age. When women first started gaining, relative to men, in educational and professional attainment, a rising share were able to attain economic security outside of marriage. And, over those same years, marriage and motherhood offered a declining prospect of economic security even for those women who might otherwise have chosen them. A growing number thus took the opportunity to pursue life goals unrelated to having their own children.
- But, as the ONS warns, these spinsters will lack the benefits of informal caregiving provided by their own children. In the UK, 43% of those 85+ rely on informal care, while only 20% rely on formal services. The most common provider of informal care? Adult children.
- As the UK and the US prepare for aging Boomers, we may want to anticipate what will happen to this massive population of late-elder women at both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. On the have-not end, policymakers will need to prepare for new demands on social services. And, on the affluent end, businesses will tool up to meet their growing lifestyle demands as consumers. (See “The Return of the Spinster.”)
