Predicting childlessness for recent cohorts of American women

Over 50% of white women now in the midst of the childbearing years have never bone a child. These levels of childlessness for women in their 20s are the highest ones in a time series that spans most of the twentieth century. Will postponed parenthood be translated into very high levels of permanent childlessness? Or will these cohorts ‘catch-up’ with a late fertility flurry in their 30s and 40s? The authors examine three projection strategies: one using women’s stated fertility expectations, a second relying on the patterns of previous cohorts, and a third which posits that current rates will persist into the future. The predictive validity of these different projection strategies are tested with data for the 1980-87 period. The authors show that the projection based on current period rates performs well. Further, they argue that it better captures the first birth process than other models. The authors forecast levels of 20% childless for cohorts of white women born in the early 1960s. Recent trends for nonwhites are very different than those for whites; levels of 4% are forecast for nonwhite women.