Center for Population Dynamics and T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, Box 873701, Tempe, AZ, 85287-3701, USA,
Demography. 2013 Oct;50(5):1641-61. doi: 10.1007/s13524-013-0215-3.
Childlessness in the United States nearly doubled between 1980 and 2000. Other dramatic changes in the U.S. population also took place over this period-notably, women's average educational attainment increased, and the proportion marrying declined-but the impact of these changes on childlessness has not been formally examined. In this article, I use data from the Current Population Survey Fertility Supplements (1995, 1998, 2004, 2008) and logistic regression and regression-based decomposition techniques to assess the contribution of changes in educational attainment, marriage behavior, and racial/ethnic composition on population levels of childlessness in the United States. Results show that increases in the proportion of women unmarried by age 40 contributed most to the increase in childlessness in the late twentieth century, although these increases were offset somewhat by increased childbearing among unmarried women. The rising proportion of women with a college degree also explained a substantial amount of the increase in childless women.
美国的无子化率在 1980 年至 2000 年间几乎翻了一番。在此期间，美国人口还发生了其他一些显著变化——尤其是女性平均受教育程度提高，以及结婚率下降——但这些变化对无子化的影响尚未得到正式研究。本文利用当前人口调查生育补充调查（1995、1998、2004、2008 年）的数据，以及逻辑回归和基于回归的分解技术，评估了教育程度、婚姻行为以及种族/族裔构成的变化对美国人口无子化水平的影响。结果表明，在 40 岁前未婚的女性比例增加是导致 20 世纪后期无子化率上升的主要原因，尽管这一增长在一定程度上被未婚女性生育增加所抵消。具有大学学历的女性比例上升也在很大程度上解释了无子化女性人数的增加。
