Psychology Department, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA.
Sci Rep. 2022 Jul 25;12(1):11907. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-15728-z.
Childfree adults do not want to have children, making them distinct from parents and other adults without children. However, they are difficult to study because they cannot be identified using conventional data on fertility. We use data from a representative sample in the United States to examine the prevalence, age of decision, and interpersonal warmth judgments by and about childfree adults. Our prevalence estimates suggest that childfree adults are quite common, comprising over one-fifth (21.64%) of the population. Our analysis of age-to-decision suggests that most childfree adults reported that they decided they did not want children early in life. Finally, our analysis of interpersonal warmth suggests asymmetric affective polarization among parents and childfree adults driven primarily by parent's ingroup favoritism. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of childfree adults and for future research on this historically overlooked segment of the population.
丁克（Childfree）人群不想生育子女，这使他们有别于父母和其他没有孩子的成年人。然而，由于无法使用传统的生育数据来识别他们，因此研究他们具有一定难度。我们使用来自美国代表性样本的数据，考察了丁克人群的流行率、决策年龄以及他们和他人对丁克人群的人际温暖判断。我们的流行率估计表明，丁克人群相当普遍，占人口的五分之一以上（21.64%）。我们对决策年龄的分析表明，大多数丁克人群表示他们在年轻时就决定不要孩子。最后，我们对人际温暖的分析表明，父母和丁克人群之间存在不对称的情感极化，主要是由父母的内群体偏爱驱动的。我们讨论了这些发现对我们理解丁克人群以及对这一历史上被忽视的人群的未来研究的意义。
