In recent research, personality journal Our results suggest that having more children than originally desired is consistently associated with lower life satisfaction and psychological well-being. This study provides evidence that adults who are voluntarily or involuntarily childless, or who have fewer children than expected, generally experience the same levels of well-being as adults who achieve family size goals. These findings reveal how individuals’ family goals align with reality and shape psychological health throughout adulthood.
Parenting is often considered a central part of a fulfilling life. In many Western countries, people usually report wanting more than one child. However, many people never reach this number, and the number of people in the population who are completely childless continues to grow.
At the same time, recent research shows that a small but significant proportion of parents regret their decision to have children. This suggests that a significant number of people perceive a gap between their ideal family size and their actual family size. Scientists call this gap the fertility discrepancy.
Laura Buchinger, a senior scientist in developmental psychology at Humboldt University Berlin, wanted to understand how this discrepancy shapes psychological health. “My research focuses on people’s life goals and how they relate to happiness, especially when those goals are not fully achieved,” she said.
“At the same time, research shows that unmet fertility needs and voluntarily not having children can be associated with psychological distress, including depressive symptoms,” Buchinger explained. “Many people today are putting off raising children, and some are (unintentionally) having fewer children than they would like or no children at all.”
Buchinger pointed out that recent studies show that between 5 and 15 percent of parents regret their choice to have children. “That’s how I became interested in how the gap between desired family size and actual family size relates to happiness,” she said.
To explore these ideas, researchers analyzed survey responses from 23,843 adults living in private households in Germany. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 100 years old. The scientists used data from a large annual survey that asked residents about their living conditions and personal goals.
The survey asked participants to indicate the ideal number of children they would like to have if they did not have a disability. The researchers then compared this ideal number to the participants’ actual number of biological children. Based on this comparison, the scientists divided the participants into five different groups.
These groups included satisfied parents who had achieved their goals and unsatisfied parents who wanted more children. This group also included oversatisfied parents who had more children than they originally wanted. The final two groups were those who did not have children unintentionally and those who did not have children by choice because they did not want them.
To measure happiness, researchers analyzed several different scores. Participants rated their overall life satisfaction, family life satisfaction, and job satisfaction on a scale of 0 to 10. The higher the number, the higher the satisfaction level.
The scientists also calculated an emotional balance score. They did this by looking at how often people felt negative emotions, such as anger or sadness, and subtracting it from how often they felt positive emotions, such as happiness. The frequency of these emotions was rated on a simple 5-point scale.
The analysis revealed that people who had more children than desired were less happy in all regions measured. These overfulfilled parents tended to have lower overall life satisfaction, lower family life satisfaction, and lower emotional balance. This negative association remained even after the researchers took into account individual differences such as income, employment, and relationship status.
Buchinger provided background on the practical significance of these results. “One way to interpret effect sizes is that they are meaningful, but not dramatic from an everyday life perspective,” she told PsyPost.
“For example, parents who had more children than ideal reported, on average, about a quarter of a standard deviation lower in life satisfaction,” Buchinger said. “In practical terms, this is roughly the difference between feeling ‘very satisfied’ and slightly less than that.”
Interestingly, scientists found that people who missed their family size goals reported similar levels of happiness as parents who met their goals. People who are voluntarily childless, people who are childless by choice, and parents who want more children are not consistently less happy.
“The key finding is that for many young and middle-aged people, the number of children they ideally want is greater than the number of children they actually have,” Buchinger said. “Desired and achieved fertility tend to match only in adults over 75.”
“Importantly, when factors such as income, employment, and relationship status are taken into account, not having children, whether by choice or by circumstance, is not associated with decreased well-being (i.e., life satisfaction, family life satisfaction, job satisfaction, or emotional well-being, i.e., how often a person experiences positive or negative emotions),” Buchinger explained. She added that in some analyses, childlessness is even associated with slightly higher happiness.
Age played a moderate role in how unmet desires affected well-being. Among young adults, wanting more children was not associated with lower happiness, perhaps because they still had time to achieve their goals. For older adults past typical reproductive age, having fewer children than desired was associated with lower life satisfaction and emotional balance.
The scientists also predicted that religious beliefs, local child care options, and local norms would influence how people felt about family size. The authors collected information about where the participants lived, including local religious attendance and the availability and quality of nearby childcare facilities. They predicted that living in conservative neighborhoods with strong family expectations would worsen childless people’s well-being.
The data provided little evidence for these regional effects. The availability and quality of local child care facilities also did not significantly alter the relationship between family size discrepancy and well-being.
“We predicted that situational factors such as childcare infrastructure, local norms, and religiosity might play a role in how perceived discrepancies between desired and actual fertility relate to well-being,” Buchinger said. She hypothesized that in areas with poor childcare infrastructure, people who exceeded their fertility needs might have a harder time, while those who didn’t might find relief by having fewer children.
“But we found no such thing in our data,” she noted. “This was somewhat surprising given that earlier studies had suggested that these factors were important. However, this does not mean they are not important; it may reflect the limitations of how we measured them in our study. More detailed and contextual studies are needed to better understand their role.”
The researchers noted some limitations to their study. This study relies on cross-sectional data. That is, the information was collected at a single point in time. This type of research means scientists cannot prove cause and effect.
“An important limitation is that this study was cross-sectional, meaning participants were only surveyed once about their desire to become pregnant,” Professor Buchinger explained. “This means we cannot determine the direction of the effect. Declines in well-being may also affect how people perceive or report the discrepancy between their desired and actual fertility.”
“Furthermore, reports of fertility preferences may also change across generations as social norms around child-rearing change,” Buchinger said. Those who suffer from stress may look back and feel they had too many children, while those who are thriving may idealize their past choices and wish they had had more children.
This data is also unique to Germany, a country with unique family policies and clear social expectations regarding child-rearing. These findings may not apply to other countries with different economic pressures and cultural environments. Another limitation is that the researchers only analyzed data on biological children, excluding the experiences of adoptive and stepparents.
Future research should track individuals over time to see how their goals and well-being change. By tracking people’s ages, scientists may be able to better understand whether personal adjustments can help people cope with unmet expectations.
“The next step is to use longitudinal data to better understand how fertility desire and well-being change over time,” Buchinger said. “I am currently working on research investigating well-being during the transition to menopause. This will help reveal how fertility desires and issues influence changes in well-being during the critical developmental deadline period.”
She also mentioned plans to explore other psychological concepts. “More broadly, I also want to expand the focus beyond life satisfaction to eudaimonic well-being, such as meaning and purpose in life, which are less studied in this context,” Buchinger added.
The study, “How the discrepancy between actual and desired fertility relates to well-being throughout adulthood,” was authored by Laura Buchinger, Michael D. Kramer, Manon A. van Schepingen, and Dennis Gerstorff.
