(WWJ) More and more Michiganders don't have kids, and say they don't want them.
A new study out of Michigan State University examining adults who are child-free, and plan to remain that way, reveals that Michigan is near the top of the list in the U.S.
Michigan trails only California among states with the highest rate of adults who do not have or do not want children.
According to the study, child-free individuals currently represent 20% of the population in Michigan.
Zachary Neal, a professor of psychology at Michigan State University and co-author of the study, noted that many states are grappling with the same underlying question: Why is this happening?
"When research asks this question, tries to get to the bottom of it, the thing that just keeps coming up is, 'I just don't want to,' 'I wasn't interested,' 'I'm happy with the way my life is now,' and those are really the most common reasons that people give for not wanting to have children," Neal said in an interview with WWJ's Ryan Wrecker on Thursday.
As states attempt to address these demographic shifts, the research indicates that common policy levers may not have the intended impact. Neal pointed out that state-level economic conditions share very little connection to a person's decision to remain child-free.
"And as we looked at these different state policies and features, we really weren't seeing much of an association," Neal said. "So it seems like a state's cost of living has a very small association with whether or not people in that state are child-free, but it's really weak, it doesn't—doesn't really explain everything".
Because of this weak association, policy initiatives such as lowering the cost of living or increasing spending on education are unlikely to persuade child-free residents to start having children. Consequently, state leaders are still trying to figure out what the right answer is.
While California and Michigan lead the nation in child-free rates, other states sit at the opposite end of the spectrum. The states with the lowest percentage of child-free adults are Louisiana (lowest rate), South Dakota, North Dakota, and Idaho.
The MSU study is available online at this link.
