Is Zero Preferred?

American Attitudes toward Childlessness in the 1970s

Author(s): Judith Blake
Source: Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 41, No. 2 (May, 1979), pp. 245-257
Published by: National Council on Family Relations
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/351694
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 Is Zero Preferred? American Attitudes
Toward Childlessness in the 1970s*
JUDITH BLAKE**
University of California, Los Angeles

Is a large increase in voluntary childlessness likely to contribute to extremely low fer-

tility rates in the United States? To address this issue, this paper uses special ques-
tions on attitudes toward childlessness that were commissioned on a Gallup survey
of voting-age adults in February, 1977. A Likert-type scale of attitudes toward child-
lessness was constructed and major sociodemographic, plus some attitudinal, pre-
dictors of scale values were studied by means of Multiple Classification Analysis.
There is a high level of consensus that nonparenthood is not an advantaged status
and, although offspring are not regarded as economic investments, they are viewed
as being socially instrumental-they are not solely consumption goods. A desire for
some children is thus not as vulnerable to cost factors as one might think on the basis
of a consumer model of reproductive motivation. Less advantaged groups in the pop-
ulation are more likely than others to regard reproduction as a social investment,
thus helping to explain the frequently-discovered inverse relationship between socio-
economic status (including educational status) and either preferred or actual family
size. A major finding of our work is that men are significantly more likely to regard
childlessness as disadvantageous than are women.

Change in the proportion of childless married Depression and the baby-boom cohorts of
women has had an important influence on women.

American fertility rates during the past 50
years. As Grabill et al., (1958:365-371) have
shown, among demographic influences, large
variations in childlessness during the prime
reproductive ages contributed the most to the
difference between Depression and baby-
boom birth rates. The other factors consid-
ered were: larger numbers of women, more
women marrying, and more births per
mother. Even permanent childlessness (that
occurring to ever-married women by age
40-44) has fluctuated widely, from a high of
approximately 20 percent around 1950 to a
low of only 7 percent 25 years later in 1975.
These percentages represent, respectively, the
*This research was supported by the National Institute
of Child Health and Human Development. The research
was undertaken during 1976 and 1977 while the author
was on leave at International Population and Urban Re-
search Institute of International Studies, University of
California, Berkeley. The author is grateful to Neil Berg
for data processing and statistical assistance.
**School of Public Health and Department of Sociol-
ogy, University of California, Los Angeles, California
90024.
Recently, the fertility decline following the
baby boom has been accompanied by a sharp
rise in nonparenthood among young married
women. Despite a countervailing trend
toward augmented rates of premarital preg-
nancy, marriage cohorts of the late 1960s
have shown marked increases in childlessness
at durations of marriage as long as five years.
For example, the marriage cohort of
1965-1969 still numbered 23 percent childless
after five years of wedlock compared to 13.6
percent without children at the same duration
of marriage among those wed during 1960-
1964 (Spencer, 1979; U.S. Bureau of the
Census, 1974: Table 17).
Not only has actual childlessness among
young wives risen in recent years but, ac-
cording to the surveys of the United States
Bureau of the Census, there has been an in-
crease in the proportions who expect to re-
main permanently without children. Whereas
in 1967 only 0.04 percent of wives aged 20-21
expected to be childless, by 1976 this figure
had risen to 4.0 percent. Comparable figures
for wives aged 22-24 are 1.7 percent in 1967

May 1979 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 245

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and 5.3 percent in 1976 (U.S. Bureau of the
Census 1976:5, 1977:25). Among young
single women in 1976 (those aged 18-24), 17
percent expected to be childless throughout
their lives (U.S. Bureau of the Census,
1977:28). Unfortunately, no comparable data
for single women are available for earlier
years from the Current Population Survey.
Information concerning ideal family size
commissioned on Gallup surveys shows,
among both men and women under age 25,
an increase in proportions saying that non-
parenthood is ideal-from 1 percent for men
and less than 1 percent for women in 1970 to
3.7 percent among men and 2.5 percent
among women in early 1977.
Thus, although the proportions expecting
or preferring to be permanently childless are
still small, the increases in these proportions
have been large over the past decade. Such
increases, coupled with rising numbers of
young women who remain childless well into
their married lives, lead us to question
whether further growth in voluntary child-
lessness is likely? Theoretically, have we
reason to believe that a rise in voluntary
childlessness will be with us for some time to
come, contributing to ever lower levels of fer-
tility in the United States? One argument
supporting such a thesis has been offered by
William Butz and Michael Ward (Butz and
Ward, 1977). According to Butz and Ward,
in an extension of the "new home economics"
theory of fertility, increases in female labor-
force participation and wages have created
unprecedented opportunity costs for women
in having a family, and the more prosperous
the economic period, the more this type of
cost impinges. Thus, Butz and Ward believe,
the United States is in a long-run condition of
counter-cyclical fertility trends in which
FIGURE 1. UTILITIES DERIVED FROM CHILDREN
prosperity, by providing improved occupa-
tional slots for women, generates growing op-
portunity costs for childbearing, while reces-
sion reduces such costs. Although they think
(1977:viii) that fertility rates "will not reach
zero," they look for "a continuing secular fer-
tility decline toward this asymptote punc-
tuated by countercyclical fertility move-
ments."
As a proponent of the thesis that raising
the costs of children, including opportunity
costs, will lower fertility, I would join in the
expectation that augmented labor-force
participation will have this effect. The
question is how drastic will the effect be?
Here it is important to have some under-
standing of why one would expect a result as
extreme as is posited by Butz and Ward-a
movement toward a zero fertility rate and a
consequent major increase in childlessness.
Such an expectation comes about, theoreti-
cally, from the notion that children in
modern societies are primarily "consumption
goods." Consequently, the desire for them is
highly sensitive to escalating costs. There is,
theoretically speaking, nothing to stop chil-
dren from being priced off the market like
any other commodity. This assumption that
children, in modern societies, are primarily
(even solely) consumption goods is found
among all microeconomic analysts of repro-
duction in advanced societies (Cochrane,
1975:373-390; Leibenstein, 1957:159-165;
Becker, 1960:209-240; Turchi, 1975:107-125;
Easterlin, 1966:131-153; Schultz, 1973,
1974). Along with the fact that control of
fertility is highly voluntary, this assumption
forms the basis for the application of con-
sumer economics to reproductive decision-
making. Yet the validity of the assumption is
never examined. Are children primarily con-

1. Economic utilities-examples:
a. Child labor
b. Help in old age
2. Noneconomic utilities-examples:
a. Conferral of kinship statuses. One can attain the status of "parent" only by having children.
b. Creation of a customized personal group larger and more varied than a dyad. Family-size goals
may be affected by how long individuals want to preserve this family-type of group in their
lives.
c. Long-term extension of one's self, one's family, one's group-the immortality syndrome.
d. Performance of religious rituals after one's death that are believed necessary for salvation, fu-
ture incarnations, and the like.
e. "Psychic income" of various origins-children as household pets, children as objects of affec-
tion, children as givers of satisfaction, and so on.

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sumption goods in modern societies? What is
the evidence?
When we search through the microeco-
nomic literature on this topic, we find that
children have been designated to be con-
sumption goods by default. This is because
they have ceased to be economic investment
goods. The literature points out that couples
would be ill-advised to expect economic gain
from children. Child labor is, by and large, il-
legal, and help in old age (since it is almost
entirely voluntary) is apt to be sporadic and
slight. So, it is assumed that children, no
longer being economic investments, have be-
come "consumption goods."
However, not all investments are economic
in nature. Indeed, a more systematic focus on
the possible utilities derived from children,
even in modern societies, makes us aware
that children may not primarily be considered
consumption goods. Among noneconomic
utilities, for instance, children may represent
social investments. A schematic representa-
tion of the theoretical utilities derived from
children is set out in Figure 1 (Blake, 1973:
279-288; see also Arnold et al., 1975; Hoff-
man and Hoffman, 1973:19-76).
Thus, barring the role of children as
economic investments (items la and ib), and
even assuming little direct enjoyment and re-
ward from offspring as pure consumer goods
(items 2e), there are still, theoretically, cogent
reasons for parenthood that are uniquely in-
herent in the role of children as social invest-
ments; i. e., investments in parental status, in
creating a family group of which one can be a
member, in "immortality" or a long-term ex-
tension of oneself, in companionship or moral
support in old age, or perhaps in some sort of
posthumous remembrance of one's presence
on this earth (items 2a-2d).
The present research reports on a survey
investigation of public views concerning
childlessness in the United States in Febru-
ary, 1977. This investigation was conducted,
in large part, to determine whether or not
children are, indeed, regarded as social in-
vestment goods in American society, and
whether or not people believe that other types
of consumption goods are more attractive
than children. This effort should help us to
assess levels of social support for nonparent-
hood as an option in the United States. Such
social support is important to individual deci-
May 1979 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY 247
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sion-making regarding childlessness, because
negative public views of the childless person
may themselves constitute a pressure toward
parenthood-a personal obstacle to be over-
come in the decision to remain without
children.
DEVELOPING AN INSTRUMENT
TO MEASURE ATTITUDES
TOWARD CHILDLESSNESS
Since, to our knowledge, no previous work
had been done on measuring national atti-
tudes toward childlessness, it seemed wise to
begin with a familiar and widely understood
scaling technique for attitudes and opinions.
These criteria are met by a Likert-type scale.
Likert scales are relatively simple to con-
struct, easy to use, and have reliability coeffi-
cients that compare well with those of other
types of instruments. In the case of scales
measuring attitudes toward childlessness, we
must wait for additional research on this sub-
ject in order to measure reliability.
Sampling the Content Area of
Views About Childlessness
In searching for items for inclusion in a
scale, it is naturally highly desirable to be as
wide-ranging as possible. Yet, in the early
stages of scale construction, it seems almost
inevitable that a share of the spectrum of pos-
sible views will be missed. Nonetheless, a
major effort was made to be inclusive.
First of all, we distinguished between state-
ments relating to the disadvantages of being
childless and those pertaining to the advan-
tages. We surmised that there might be a def-
inite substantive difference between alleging
that childlessness does not have disadvan-
tages of a particular kind and claiming that it
has positive advantages.
Second, to tap the variety of alleged disad-
vantages and advantages of childlessness, the
growing popular literature on "nonparent-
hood" was studied carefully, since it contains
a lively dialogue between two sets of propo-
nents: for parenthood and for nonparenthood
(Peck, 1971; Peck and Sendorowitz, 1974;
National Organization for Non-Parents,
1971-1976). This literature includes editorial
suggestions for handling a wide range of pro-
natalist coercions that readers may experi-
ence, together with articles by nonparents de-
tailing the pressures they undergo and ex-
pressing their reasons for being childless. Ad-
ditionally, rounds of letters by readers are in-
cluded that elaborate on proddings by rela-
tives and friends, and share the responses
that a nonparent can offer. We have also re-
ferred to "advice" columnists (such as "Dear
Abby" and Ann Landers), as well as to rele-
vant articles in women's magazines. Finally,
we relied on theoretical expectations, already
discussed, concerning the utilities derived
from and costs of children.
In all, five questions were asked concerning
the possible disadvantages of childlessness
and two concerning the possible advantages.
The questions were prefaced by a statement
assuring respondents that there were neither
right nor wrong answers to these items, but
that we were interested solely in respondents'
opinions and attitudes. Care was taken to al-
ternate the "agree" and "disagree" responses
so as to avoid a bias due to acquiescence. The
questions are presented in Appendix 1.
Sampling the Population Used
,for Constructing the Scale
Because we want to build a widely applica-
ble scale of attitudes toward childlessness,
our work has been developed on a random
sample of the American population of voting
age. The questions formed part of a battery of
queries on childlessness and the one-child
family (26 questions in all) commissioned on
a Gallup survey of approximately 1,600 re-
spondents in early February, 1977. Percen-
tage distributions of the responses to the
seven items for this sample are given in Table
1.
Although, for some purposes, it would be
desirable to be able to distinguish respon-
TABLE 1. ATTITUDES TOWARD CHILDLESSNESS: GALLUP SURVEY, FEBRUARY, 1977 (TOTAL SAM-
PLE)
% Strongly % Strongly % Don't
Agree % Agree % Undecided % Disagree Disagree Know Total
Disadvantages of
Childlessness
Empty lives
Unfulfilled 5 40 18 32 5 1 100
Divorce 4 30 17 44 6 0 100
Lonely 14 50 7 21 7 0 100
Financial 2 13 13 62 9 1 100
Advantages of
Childlessness
Best time 2 12
Intimacy 4 9
248 JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY May 1979
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dents who are voluntarily childless on a
permanent basis from others, this was not
possible in the present research. Such a dis-
tinction would have involved us in detailed
questioning concerning fecundity status, vol-
untary and involuntary causes of childless-
ness, and so on, that would be inappropriate
to a nationwide sample of voting-age adults.
Since one purpose of the present study is to
develop questions and scaling instruments
that can be used for national fertility surveys
in the future, we are deferring comparisons of
childless and nonchildless respondents to
such time as questioning on attitudes toward
childlessness can be included in a study de-
voted exclusively to fertility.
Scoring
All seven statements were coded so that a
value of one was assigned to the most strongly
antinatalist (prochildlessness) sentiment, and
a value of five to the most pronatalist (anti-
childlessness) view. Inter-item correlations
(Table 2) demonstrated that four of the ques-
tions on the disadvantages of childlessness
formed a homogeneous scale. Furthermore,
the questions on the advantages of childless-
ness are intercorrelated. However, it is clear
that these two dimensions (disadvantages and
advantages) should not be combined into one
instrument-at least not one scored in the
manner of a Likert scale. We thus constructed
a four-item scale of attitudes toward child-
lessness based on the disadvantages items.
The final scale containing four items ranges
in value from 4 to 20. The higher values are
the most pronatalist (antichildlessness) re-
sponses. The mean value of the scale is 12.3
with a standard deviation of 3.1.
7 37 11 37 8 0 100
11 64 10 1 100
8 57 22 1 100
Inter-Item Correlation
The inter-item Pearsonian correlation ma-
trix for the seven items is shown in Table 2.
In judging the size of these coefficients, the
reader should bear in mind that inter-item
correlations seldom exceed 0.40. Indeed, Scot
(1968:258) speaks of coefficients of 0.33 as
"unusually high," and notes that most psy-
chological scales achieve coefficients of 0.2 or
less.
Turning first to the five items purporting to
measure attitudes toward the disadvantages
of childlessness, it is apparent that, except for
the item referring to financial stress in old
age, the inter-item coefficients are high. This
is particularly true since none of the questions
constituted a repetition (or rewording) of any
other question, and the sample was hetero-
geneous. As can be seen in Table 2, the
average correlation coefficient for "financial"
is the only one below 0.2. If "financial" is
omitted from the matrix, then three of the
inter-item correlation coefficients for the four
other "disadvantages" items are more than
0.30, and one is almost 0.40. The lowest is
then 0.27.
By contrast, low inter-item correlations are
found between the questions relating to ad-
vantages and disadvantages (Table 2). How-
ever, the "advantages" items do appear to
form the beginnings of a scale between them-
selves, as is evident from the fairly substantial
inter-item coefficients found in Table 2.
Again, the coefficients are rendered more im-
portant by the fact that the questions are
nonrepetitive in subject matter.
TABLE 2. INTER-ITEM PEARSONIAN CORRELATION MATRIX: SEVEN ITEMS FOR POSSIBLE INCLU-
SION IN LIKERT SCALE OF ATTITUDES TOWARD CHILDLESSNESS-GALLUP SURVEY, FEBRUARY,
1977
Disadvantages Advantages
Empty Lives Unfulfilled Divorce Lonely Financial Best Time Intimacy
Disadvantages
Empty lives .3968 .3838 .3771 .2537 .1475 .1388
Unfulfilled .3968 - .3276 .2277 .2604 .0338 .0591
Divorce .3838 .3276 - .2059 .2025 .0383 .0912
Lonely .3771 .2277 .2059 - .0770 .1502 .1489
Financial .2537 .2604 .2025 .0770 - .0244 -.0905
Mean Score .3528 .3031 .2800 .2219 .1984
Mean Score
Without Financial .3859 .3174 .3058 .2702
Advantages
Best
Intimacy - time- . .2962
.2962
Mean Score -
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THE ADVANTAGES AND
DISADVANTAGES OF
CHILDLESSNESS
Our inability, for methodological reasons,
to combine questions on the advantages and
disadvantages of nonparenthood was based
on a virtual unanimity among respondents
that childlessness is not advantageous. This
consensus regarding advantages stands in
marked contrast to the spread of responses
concerning the disadvantages of childless-
ness. We will now consider the separate re-
sponses in more detail before looking at the
scale results.
Questions 1 and 5 in Appendix 1 related to
the advantages of childlessness. The purpose
of these questions was to tap whether or not
respondents believed that being childless of-
fered unique opportunities for highly de-
sirable alternative forms of consumption
("best times") and whether or not children
were seen as interfering with the marital
bond. Clearly, despite the claims of the non-
parenthood literature, the childless are not
seen as enjoying the most satisfying life-style,
nor are they seen as having the most satisfy-
ing marriages (Table 1). Being childless does
not have a "glamour" image.
As for the disadvantages of childlessness,
attitudes toward them were measured by
questions 2-4, 6 and 7 in Appendix 1. It is
worth noting that these questions are worded
strongly so that agreement with them indi-
cates fairly outspoken negative views of non-
parenthood. By the same token, disagree-
ment may reflect an unwillingness on the part
.2793 .2530
TABLE 3. ATTITUDES TOWARD DISADVANTAGES AND ADVANTAGES OF CHILDLESSNESS BY AGE,
SEX, AND EDUCATIONAL LEVEL: GALLUP SURVEY, FEBRUARY, 1977

Total
% % %
U.S. Women Men

Agree Undecided Disagree Agree Undecided Disagree Agree Undecided Disagree

Empty Lives
44 11 45
Sex
Women 40 10 49
Men 48 11 40 - -
Age
Under 30 32 12 55 32 11 56 31 13 54
30-44 41 11 48 36 10 53 47 11 41
45+ 52 10 37 46 10 43 58 10 32
Education
Grade School 64 14 22 60 12 27 68 15 18
High School 45 11 44 41 11 48 50 10 39
College 34 10 55 29 9 61 38 11 50
Unfulfilled
45 18 37
Sex
Women 42 13 45
Men 48 22 29 - - -
Age
Under 30 38 21 40 35 14 50 40 28 31
30-44 42 16 42 38 12 49 47 18 34
45+ 51 17 32 48 13 39 53 21 24
Education
Grade School 60 21 18 62 18 21 60 24 16
High School 47 16 36 45 12 43 50 22 28
College 35 18 46 26 14 59 42 21 36
Divorce
33 17 50
Sex
Women 26 14 60 - -
Men 40 20 39 - - -
Age
Under 30 28 16 55 20 15 65 36 18 45
30-44 31 15 54 24 10 67 40 20 40
45+ 37 18 44 31 16 53 43 21 35
Education
Grade School 45 23 32 47 17 36 44 28 28
High School 32 15 52 26 10 63 40 21 38
College 30 17 52 16 20 62 41 14 45
Lonely
65 7 28
Sex
Women 64 6 30 - -
Men 66 7 26 - - -
Age
Under 30 60 9 30 63 7 30 59 11 29
30-44 59 7 34 56 6 37 62 7 30
45+ 71 6 23 69 6 24 72 5 22
Education
Grade School 72 7 21 69 8 23 74 5 20
High School 67 6 27 66 6 29 68 7 24
College 58 8 33 57 8 35 60 8 32
Best Time
14 11 74
Sex
Women 15 8 77 - -
Men 13 14 72

(Continued on next page.)

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TABLE 3 (CONTINUED)
Total
% % %
U.S. Women Men
Agree Undecided Disagree Agree Undecided Disagree Agree Undecided Disagree
Under 30 19 15 65 22 9 68 16 21 62
30-44 13 10 77 9 8 82 17 12 71
45+ 11 10 78 14 7 79 9 12 78
Education
Grade School 16 14
High School 14 11 74 15 8 77 14 15 70
College 12 10 77 13 7 79 11 12 76
13 8 79
Sex
Women 13 7 80
Men 13 9 77
Age
Under 30 14 12
30-44 15 5 79 12 4 84 18
45+ 11 7 81 11 8 81 11
Education
Grade School 12 13
High School 13 8 79 13 7 80 12 9 77
College 14 6 80 13 4 82 15 6 78
of some respondents to subscribe to such cat-
egorical statements about other people,
rather than a feeling that childlessness is
without disadvantages. Insofar as this is true,
our research underestimates negative views of
nonparenthood. It seems most unlikely that
we are overestimating popular disapproval on
this subject.
As the marginals for "financial" make
clear (Table 1), most respondents explicitly
deny that progeny are a long-term economic
investment. Are they an important social in-
vestment? There is substantial agreement
that children are a hedge against loneliness in
old age. A very small proportion are unde-
cided on this point. There is a range of re-
sponses concerning whether or not offspring
are of instrumental value (social investments)
in giving life meaning, in providing fulfill-
ment for women, and in cementing mar-
riages.
Who is most likely to think of childlessness
as having the specific disadvantages studied
here? On a bivariate level, we see from Table
3 that men are more likely to have this view
than are women. The sex difference is mar-
ginal with regard to three of the items, but is
fairly large when it comes to the belief that
marriages without children are more likely to
end in divorce. The sex difference on this
topic is maintained among all age groups and
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Best Time (Continued)
70 17 14 70 16 14 69
Intimacy
- - - -
74 17 9 74 12 14 73
7 74
7 82
75 12 14 73 11 12 76
is particularly large between college-educated
men and women, because there is a sharp ed-
ucational gradient among women but not
among men. In fact, for all four questions,
the sex difference is greatest between the col-
lege-educated, indicating that "conscious-
ness-raising" on this subject is greater among
college-educated women than among college-
educated men. However, for both sexes, an
educational gradient exists. The educational
spread is greatest for "empty lives" and
"unfulfilled," indicating that, for lower-edu-
cated respondents particularly, children are
instrumental in giving life meaning and pro-
viding women with an important status.
In effect, these data suggest that for a clear
majority of respondents, regardless of age,
sex, or education, children are a social invest-
ment against loneliness in old age. For high
proportions of respondents with less than a
college education, children are seen as having
additional social investment value-for pro-
viding meaning in life, for giving women a
status without which they would be unful-
filled, and for cementing marriages.
These examples thus lend credence to the
claim that the reproductive decision-making
of modern couples is not entirely, or even pri-
marily, a "consumption-goods" decision,
and, hence, that the consumer theory of re-
production is misspecified. Awareness of this
TABLE 4. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES AND THE SCALE OF ATTI-
TUDES TOWARD CHILDLESSNESS: GALLUP SURVEY, FEBRUARY, 1977
Class Deviations from Adjusted Deviations from
Predictor* N Mean** Grand Mean Mean Grand Mean

Age
Under 30 395 11.6 -0.7 11.9 -0.4
30-39 306 11.8 -0.6 12.0 -0.3
40-49 221 12.6 0.2 12.7 0.3
50-59 269 12.8 0.4 12.6 0.3
60+ 355 13.2 0.8 12.6 0.3
Sex
Men 758 12.8 0.5 12.9 0.5
Women 788 11.9 -0.4 11.8 -0.5
Race
White 1370 12.3 0.0 12.3 0.0
Black 166 12.7 0.4 12.6 0.3

Religion
Catholic 449 12.4 0.0 12.6 0.2
Protestant 950 12.5 0.2 12.3 0.0
Jewish 30 12.0 -0.3 12.7 0.4
Other 20 12.6 0.3 12.8 0.5
None 97 10.8 -1.5 11.3 -1.1
Education
0-8 202 13.8 1.5 13.2 0.8
H.S. Incomplete 244 12.9 0.5 12.8 0.5
H.S. Completed 609 12.3 -0.1 12.3 0.0
College Incomplete 262 11.8 -0.5 12.1 -0.2
College 4+ 229 11.3 -1.1 11.5 -0.8
Marital Status
Married and Separated 1158 12.5 0.1 12.4 0.1
Widowed 129 13.4 1.0 13.1 0.8
Single 193 11.4 -1.0 11.8 -0.5
Divorced 66 11.1 -1.2 11.3 -1.1

Family Income
Under $5,000 210 12.9 0.6 12.4 0.0
$5,000-$9,999 338 12.8 0.5 12.7 0.3
$10,000-$14,999 335 12.3 0.0 12.4 0.0
$15,000-$19,999 272 11.8 -0.6 12.0 -0.4
$20,000-$24,999 134 12.0 -0.3 12.3 0.0
$25,000+ 168 12.4 0.0 12.6 0.3
Community Size
Under 10,000 479 13.0 0.6 12.7 0.4
10,000-50,000 188 12.4 0.0 12.4 0.0
50,000-250,000 280 12.0 -0.3 12.0 -0.4
250,000+ 599 12.0 -0.3 12.2 -0.1
Region
East 410 12.1 -0.3 12.1 -0.2
Midwest and Rocky Mountain 492 12.2 -0.1 12.3 -0.1
South 426 12.9 0.6 12.7 0.3
Pacific 218 11.9 -0.4 12.3 -0.1
Grand Mean 12.3
Standard Deviation 3.1

*F-ratios are not shown in this table because, in the case of MCA, it is inappropriate to compute them for
each predictor based on the adjusted sum of squares.
**Figures in this table have been rounded independently.

commitment to children as a social invest-
ment helps to explain a number of anomalies
that consumer theories of reproduction leave
untouched. For example, the consumer
theory of fertility has no ready explanation for
why poor people want any children, much less
why they typically want larger families than
the well-to-do.
Additionally, these results lead us to ques-
tion whether or not reproductive levels are as

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drastically vulnerable to the opportunity-
costs women are currently experiencing as
analysts like Butz imply. If children still rep-
resent important and unique types of social
investment, especially for some sectors of the
population, fertility rates may resist sinking
to levels that would imply high rates of child-
lessness.
The scale scores (unadjusted means) for a
range of major sociodemographic variables
are shown in Table 4. Here we see that the less-
educated, the middle-aged and old, the reli-
gious, the married and widowed, those with
low incomes, Southerners, and those residing
in places of less than 100,000 population are
the most inclined to view children as a social
investment. Interestingly, men more than
women are prone to see the disadvantages of
childlessness. Table 5 presents scores for two
additional variables-belief in God and a
scale of social striving. The results according
to religious orthodoxy are as was expected-
the more orthodox the respondent, the more
pronatalist he/she is. The social striving re-
sults might seem surprising since the strivers
are the most pronatalist. An interpretation of
this result is in the following section.
THE PREDICTORS OF ATTITUDES
TOWARD CHILDLESSNESS:
A MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS
We will now see what happens to our bivar-
iate relationships when controls are intro-
duced. We may also ask how much of the var-
iation in scale scores is accounted for by
sociodemographic and attitudinal variables
and, finally, which of the variables provides
the most explanation.
To answer these questions we have used
Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA)
which is an elaboration of "dummy variable"
multiple regression analysis (cf Andrews et
al.: 1973). This method allows for categorical
variables as well as numerical values. The
method makes no assumptions about linear-
ity and is capable of demonstrating possible
nonlinearities as a normal feature of its oper-
ation. However, MCA does assume a high de-
gree of additivity. Data sets in which there are
major interactions are not appropriate for use
with MCA unless it is possible to construct in-
teraction variables. To detect interactions
(and other anomalies with the data), AID
(Automatic Interaction Detector), a compan-
ion program to MCA, was first run on the
survey (cf Sonquist et al.: 1973; Sonquist,
1970). The AID results indicated very little
interaction. Test MCA runs demonstrated
that the relationships were effectively additive
and, therefore, that an MCA analysis could
be used without further adjustments.1
'AID demonstrates the existence of major interactions
but it provides no objective basis for evaluating the seri-
ousness of the interactions for MCA analysis. To test for

TABLE 5. ATTITUDES TOWARD CHILDLESSNESS: MEAN SCALE SCORES ACCORDING TO BELIEF IN

GOD AND ATTITUDES TOWARD STATUS STRIVING: GALLUP SURVEY, FEBRUARY, 1977
Mean Scale
Scores

Belief in God

Which one of the statements on this card comes closest to expressing what you believe
about God?

1. I know God really exists and I have no doubts about it. 12.6 (1066)
2. While I have doubts, I feel that I do believe in God. 12.1 ( 253)
3. I find myself believing in God some of the time, but not at other times. 12.1 ( 57)
4. I don't believe in a personal God, but I do believe in a higher power of some kind. 11.3 ( 99)
5. I don't know whether there is a God and I don't believe there is any way to find out. 11.2 ( 45)
6. I don't believe in God. 11.0 ( 25)
Social Striving
Would you agree or disagree that raising one's social position is one of the most important
goals in life?

1. Strongly agree 13.0 ( 335)

2. Agree
3. Undecided 12.9 ( 95)
4. Disagree 12.1 ( 904)
5. Strongly disagree 11.9 ( 229)
Total* 12.3 (1570)

*Categories do not add up to total because of "Don't Know" and "Other" responses.

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 TABLE 6. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCALE OF ATTITUDES TOWARD CHILDLESSNESS AND BELIEF
IN GOD AND SOCIAL STRIVING, CONTROLLING FOR SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES: GALLUP
SURVEY, FEBRUARY, 1977
Class Deviations from Adjusted Deviations from
Predictor N Mean Grand Mean Mean* Grand Mean

Social Striving_
Strongly Agree and Agree 326 13.0 0.6 12.8 0.5
Undecided 94 12.9 0.6 12.6 0.3
Disagree 894 12.1 -0.2 12.2 -0.2
Strongly disagree 225 11.9 -0.4 12.2 -0.2
Belief in God
No doubt 1048 12.6 0.3 12.5 0.1
Have doubts 251 12.1 -0.2 12.3 -0.1
Some of time 56 12.0 -0.3 12.4 0.0
Higher power 99 11.3 -1.0 11.7 -0.6
Don't know 45 11.2 -1.1 11.7 -0.7
Don't believe 23 10.9 --1.4 11.7 -0.6
Grand Mean 12.3
Standard Deviation 3.1

*Age, sex, race, religion, education, marital status, family income, community size, and region are held con-
stant.

In addition to the unadjusted means, Table Some original bivariate relationships

4 gives adjusted means. The adjusted means
for any single variable control for the effects
of the other variables in the analysis. The ad-
justed deviations from the grand mean are
presented, as well, in order to clarify the na-
ture of the relationships.
We see, from a comparison of the unad-
justed and adjusted means (Table 4) that, in
general, the bivariate relationships are
attenuated when other variables are intro-
duced as controls. The differences between
whites and blacks, the South and other
regions, the married/separated/widowed and
the divorced/single, young and old, rural and
urban, those with more and less education,
and rich and poor are all lessened when the
effects of the other variables are taken into
account. However, in most cases, fairly sharp
differences remain, and the nature of the re-
lationships does not change. For example,
even when age and other possibly confound-
ing variables are controlled, the more-edu-
cated are considerably less pronatalist than
those with less schooling. And, conversely,
even with education and other variables held
constant, the young are decidedly less pro-
natalist than the old.
the effects of interactions, the researcher must run two
MCA analyses on the data set under the respective as-
sumptions of additivity and nonadditivity. When this was
done, we found that the adjusted R2 for the additive
model was actually higher than the adjusted R2 for the
interaction model, indicating that the latter assumption
was inappropriate.
change in interesting ways when other vari-
ables are introduced. The gap between the
sexes becomes even wider-with men receiv-
ing somewhat higher adjusted scores and
women somewhat lower ones. The enhance-
ment of these sex differences after other vari-
ables are controlled may indicate a greater
commitment to having a family on the part of
men. On the other hand, it may simply
demonstrate that men are less likely to bridle
at categorically stated pronatalism than are
women at this point in time. This is parti-
cularly true since, on balance, the questions
relate more to women's status and bargaining
power than to men's. In the 1970s, many
women may resent an overt pronouncement
that they would be "unfulfilled" without chil-
dren, or that their marriages will hold to-
gether only if children provide the glue.
A further change which occurs when the
data are adjusted is that the pattern of scores
for religious groups shifts markedly. Control
for sociodemographic variables shows Cath-
olics and Jews to be more pronatalist and
Protestants to be less so than was indicated by
the bivariate distributions. In effect, the
sociodemographic characteristics associated
with each religious affiliation suppress and
distort the differentials in scale scores. This
type of effect has been found before in
American fertility research on religious dif-
ferences (cf. Freedman et al., 1961:608-614).
What of the two attitudinal variables-be-
lief in God and social striving? Even when

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TABLE 7. MARGINAL EFFECT OF SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC AND ATTITUDINAL VARIABLES ON SCALE
OF ATTITUDES TOWARD CHILDLESSNESS

Adjusted R2 Percentage Gain in R2 from Adding Deleted Variables*

Full model** .130
Less: Sex .104 24
Education .114 14
Marital Status .119 9
Family Income .122 6
Age .123 6
Religion .123 5
Community Size .123 5
Region .127 2
Race .130 0
Full model plus Belief in God .131 1
Full model plus Social Striving .134 4
*The figures in this column indicate the percentage gain in R2 of the full model compared with the R2 of the
model with the designated variable deleted. Thus, the gain in R2 between the full model and the one with sex de-
leted is .026 or 24 percent.
**Age, sex, race, religion, education, marital status, family income, community size, and region.

other variables are held constant, believers
remain more pronatalist than doubters or un-
believers. However, the relationship is
weakened when other variables are con-
trolled. As for social striving, Table 6 shows
that where sociodemographic variables are
held constant, the relationship between
social-striving attitudes and pronatalism is
attenuated but not changed. It is still true
that those most committed to social striving
are the most pronatalist. They do not view
children as a hindrance in getting ahead.
They want both: to get ahead and to have
children. This result gives added weight to
our contention that children are regarded as
social investments rather than as consump-
tion goods to be readily sacrificed when the
opportunity costs escalate.
Which of the sociodemographic variables
exerts the greatest effect on values of the
childlessness scale when the other variables
are held constant? From Table 7 we see that
sex, education, and marital status are the
most influential. Except for race, which has
no effect, the remaining background vari-
ables have similar, relatively small amounts
of influence. We can also see that, after
taking into account the sociodemographic
influences, the marginal effect of the atti-
tudinal variables is not great.
CONCLUSION
In the future, is a large increase in volun-
tary childlessness likely to contribute to ex-
tremely low fertility rates in the United States?
To judge by the results reported on here, the
answer is "no." There is a high level of con-
sensus that nonparenthood is not an advan-
taged status and, although offspring are not
regarded as economic investments, they are
viewed as being socially instrumental-not
solely as consumption goods. A desire for
children, thus, is not as vulnerable to cost
factors as one might think on the basis of a
consumer model of reproductive motivation.
Indeed, our results suggest that the applica-
tion of consumer theory to reproductive be-
havior is inappropriate since children are im-
portant social investments, and the degree to
which this is the case varies among social
strata. Less advantaged groups in the popula-
tion are more likely than others to regard re-
production as a social investment, thus help-
ing to explain the frequently-discovered in-
verse relationship between socioeconomic
status (including educational status) and
either preferred or actual family size. In
effect, persons of lesser socioeconomic status
desire and have more children (in spite of
lesser income) not only because they are
willing, on the average, to settle for lower
quality offspring, but because children are
perceived as having more of a social invest-
ment value than is the case at higher socio-
economic levels.
A major finding of our work is that men are
significantly more likely to regard childless-
ness as disadvantageous than are women. If
this result is not an artifact of questioning
techniques, it raises interesting issues. Since
the opportunity costs in childbearing still im-
pinge more heavily on women than on men,
women are, as Butz and Ward suggest, vul-
nerable to an escalation of such costs.
However, one cannot conclude that the only

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result of a change in women's job oppor-
tunities will be a mammoth increase in child-
lessness. The fact that men of all strata view
nonparenthood as distinctly disadvantageous
suggests that they may be willing to help
women lower the opportunity costs of child-
bearing and rearing in order to have a family
-a small family, perhaps, but a family none-
theless. Equal sharing of household and
childrearing responsibilities between mates
could have the effect of mitigating many op-
portunity costs for women and allowing
couples to experience parenthood if they wish
to do so. A greater egalitarianism between
mates in the United States, as contrasted with
many other low fertility countries, could thus
prevent an extreme escalation of nonparent-
hood here.
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APPENDIX 1. TEXT OF QUESTIONS ON ATTITUDES TOWARD CHILDLESSNESS
(The identifying words to the left are used in the tables in this paper.)
Intimacy 1. Having a child gets in the way of the closeness and intimacy of a couple's relationship.
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Undecided
d. Disagree
e. Strongly disagree
Lonely 2. People who are childless are more likely to be lonely in their older years than persons who
have had children.
a. Strongly disagree
b. Disagree
c. Undecided
d. Agree
e. Strongly agree
Empty Lives 3. Childless couples are more likely to lead empty lives than couples with children.
a. Strongly disagree
b. Disagree
c. Undecided
d. Agree
e. Strongly agree
Financial 4. If you have never had children, you are more likely to have a hard time financially when you
are older.
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Undecided
d. Disagree
e. Strongly disagree
Best Times 5. It seems to me that childless couples are the ones who are having the best time in life.
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Undecided
d. Disagree
e. Strongly disagree
Divorce 6. Childless marriages are more likely to end in divorce than are marriages where there are chil-
dren.
a. Strongly disagree
b. Disagree
c. Undecided
d. Agree
e. Strongly agree
Unfulfilled 7. A woman is likely to feel unfulfilled unless she becomes a mother.
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Undecided
d. Disagree
e. Strongly disagree

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