Becky and her husband Seth have spent 21 years of marriage being fully active members of their community in California. They’ve run a local scholarship program and have kept a closetful of prom dresses to loan out to students in need. They’re mentors in their community, but they don’t have any kids of their own. Becky said, “A lot of people assume because we don’t have kids, we’re not fulfilled. And it’s not right.”

The proportion of adults in the United States younger than 50 years old who do not have children is growing — leaping from 37 percent in 2018 to 47 percent in 2023, according to a new Pew Research Center survey published. The new Pew study comes as comments resurfaced from Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican candidate for vice president, who told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in 2021 that the country was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

However, with more people not having children, Pew researchers wanted to investigate whether the unhappy childless adult characterization is actually true. Rachel Minkin, a report coauthor and Pew research associate, said, “We wanted to learn more about the reasons adults don’t have children, their experiences, how it impacts their relationships.” The latest poll surveyed more than 3,300 adults who do not have children and say they are not likely to have them.

While researchers did find that those surveyed reported some difficulties and pressure, they also found that people without children also reported ways in which their experiences were full and connected. “We see majorities …  saying having a fulfilling life doesn’t have much to do with whether someone does or doesn’t have children,” Minkin said.

According to the research, there were many reasons why people said they didn’t have kids, including financial concerns, infertility, or that it just didn’t happen. For people younger than 50, the top reason reported for not having children was that they don’t want to. “It is completely normal and valid not to want to have children,” said licensed psychologist Dr. Linda Baggett, owner of Well Woman Psychology in Manhattan Beach, California, in an email. “I think current generations are feeling more empowered to be open about and act on this preference, whereas, in past generations, people may have been more likely to have children anyway due to societal expectations, economic/labor factors, and religious beliefs. “It is a myth that everyone, especially women, wants to have children,” said Baggett, who was not involved in the research.

In her practice, psychotherapist Carissa Strohecker Hannum sees a lot of people saying that they feel hesitant to bring children into the world when they are so concerned about the state of it. Other clients have had such bad experiences with their relationships with their parents that they are worried about repeating the pattern. Hannum, clinical director at Monarch Wellness in the Washington, DC, area, was not involved in the research.