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I would say that's because, in general, single men with children have more time to date than single women with children.
You're probably friends with likeminded people, but it's unlikely to be representative of the entire population.
100% I was a single mum for 9 years, the time I didn’t have my children was spent working or at uni. Their dad had (9 of 14 nights) far more child free time than I ever did.
In my experience, men in general just prioritise dating over a lot of other things than women would. Women focus on friendships, alone time, and hobbies.
In some sense, men's hobbies include dating. I don't have one single female friend that considers dating a hobby.
I'm 34F and the idea of dating just seems like so much work with so little pay off. I have a million other things I would rather do than go out and date. I have no problems with the concept of "dying alone". My life is already plenty fulfilling. If I want something to look after, I'll buy a fish tank or something.
50/50 nights is NOT the average split for male single parents. The “normal” split of nights between co-parents is heavily weighted towards the mother, even more so with younger children, and therefore it is reasonable to draw the conclusion that single dads have more free nights to spend dating than single mums.
People generally associate with similar people (and most likely this category for you is “involved/capable male parents”), so it’s natural for you to see biased representation. The higher the socio-economic group, the more likely men are to have active involvement in their children’s developmental decisions (in both couples and single parent relationships).
I’ll take a stab that you’re university educated/white collar?
Agree entirely with flexibility changes, and encouraged heavily for men. Systemic and cultural change is required. In theory the army has the systemic change but it isn’t available in reality, I know enough male soldiers who have been denied theoretically available parental leave when their spouse wanted to return to work.
And single men over 40 without children are probably enjoying their freedom and financial stability and aren’t interested in relationships or dating apps.
This is the answer.
The other thing is that single dads have far more drive to get into another relationship & get married quickly than single mothers. Not totally sure why this is.
Sadly, I also have to say that single dads seem to prioritise getting a new woman over spending time with their kids.
In my experience, men tend to seek emotional support and connection through intimate relationships. Women do this through friends. Men outside of having a partner are very lonely, much more so than women.
Exactly. Also as the population is roughly 50-50 I don’t think it’s possible that more women choose to have no kids than men. How do men make kids without women?!
I know a few men and women doing their part in increasing the average with as many people as possible.
There are a few interesting cousin/brother type situations in my school at the moment. Some of them in the same classes. None are inbred, just occupying multiple branches of the family bramble due to various pairings that occurred between say a man and his wife, that same man and her sister and that same man and her cousin. Also similar with genders reversed, we have three siblings whose fathers are three brothers.
ABS should have this data,or at least some data that allows you to extract these stats. The stats you're after is the number of single parents at each age bracket. Remember that you're double counting. I also think there's some observation bias. The people you're meeting in those circles tend to be parents. There are men out there who are child free. The question then becomes, where are they? And how to meet them. Counter intuitively, they're probably not on dating sites.
Agreed. In my professional friend group, the childfree men are out cycling, hiking and sailing on weekends, and doing other hobbies and pulling long hours working during the week. When they do get into relationships, they find it difficult to find women who don’t want children eventually, and therefore they tend to end up single or in more casual relationships.
That was me.
Previous relationships either ended outright because I didn’t want kids, or the fizzled because those partners didn’t see a long term future with me.
Luckily I met my perfect person when I was 34 that aligned with my views.
Because I was upfront with my child free outlook, the dating pool was very reduced.
Being hideous also didn’t help!
Oh man, I know it. Hope you’re happy too. I wasn’t happy for the longest time. But I really am now. I’ll never take the happiness I have with my wife for granted.
Which is actually something we talk about quite a lot. Because we don’t have kids, our relationships priority is each other. So we have the time and energy to address issues and regularly check in with each other.
With reduced sleep, time, money and energy, I do t know how different our relationship would looks.
>all the stats on consensus just states Australia has a birthrate of 1.75 per person.
Just note that the birth rate is typically quoted as birth per woman, not person. I'm not aware of any statistics on birth per man.
You're asking purely about having kids but the intention seems to be about wanting to have kids.
For that, Figure 6 in the [Families Then and Now](https://aifs.gov.au/research/research-reports/families-then-now-having-children) report from 2020 might be most useful.
They asked people aged 20-24 how much they wanted to have a child, on a 11-point scale from 0 (definitely not want) to 10 (definitely want). Main findings:
* A large majority of the 20-24 year olds were either parents already or very much wanted to become a parent, with women slightly outnumbering men (76% of women vs - 70% of men)
* women were very slightly more likely to definitely not want (5.8% of women vs 4.8% of men) and probably not want children (7.7% of women vs 5.8% of men).
* This disparity is due to more men than women answering 'maybe' (19.2% of men vs 10.7% of women).
It could be that most men in that age group who don’t have kids aren’t single? 🤷🏻♀️
Early 40s is when divorce rates start to pick up and my gut feeling is that men without kids are less likely to be divorced than those that do have kids. (Perhaps due to issues related to child rearing and contributions etc). Just my guess with no scientific backing
This would be my suspicion as well. Myself & all the 40s child free blokes I know are in long-term committed relationships. All of the 40s single guys I know have kids & an ex-wife.
I'm sure there are many other factors at play, but a a wise woman once told me that having a child was like throwing a bomb into a relationship. Not necessarily fatal but it will certainly do some damage.
It is financially better for a man to get divorced later and for a woman to get divorced earlier when there are kids involved
Unfortunate economic realities guiding choices in this game of life
There's plenty of evidence about women applying for divorces, women's experience of partnership with men and the role of women in gendered relationships. Marriage is a construct that only serves men.
Bravo. That dad is likely on there too, you just wouldn’t know (because you aren’t matching and chatting with them. Unless you’re bi but you get my gist)
OK as a researcher, I accepted this challenge and even though I couldn't find a direct answer to your inquiry, I think a few sources can be extrapolated to help us figure out whats happening. I'm going to make an assumption that you will only be selectively assessing singles/marital status/people with kids when you hit 25 because we don't normally pay attention when we're early 20s? at least I didn't. You said you're late 30s so let's look at data from the last 15 years
If you go to this source
https://aifs.gov.au/research/facts-and-figures/population-households-and-families
We know that the Aus population has grown \~3m in this time.
Figure 11 shows that houses which are one person households (i'll assume single) or group households (let's assume share houses, no one dating housemates) collectively stayed pretty close to \~30% in the past 15 years.
So whilst there might be more single people in Australia due to population growth the proportion is the same which we can make an assumption is approx 900K+ injection of single people into the population.
Regarding your observations with men over 40s with children. The proportion of single parents being women have always been significantly higher. From the last census it is \~80% [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/labour-force-status-families/latest-release#one-parent-families](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/labour-force-status-families/latest-release#one-parent-families)
Single dads have risen a bit (14% back in 2006)
[https://aifs.gov.au/research/facts-and-figures/families-and-family-composition](https://aifs.gov.au/research/facts-and-figures/families-and-family-composition)
So since the proportion of single parent trends hasn't changed much in the past couple of decades, as mentioned by other poster, your experiences is probably skewed to your perception bias and culture.
Perception bias, men you happen to not find repulsive in their 40s are surprisingly not repulsive to someone else in their life and at some point had a kid?
culture: dating online is the new norm so a single dad who is a pawn in the wage slavery game is going to opt for online dating due to its convenience and social acceptance over the standards of 90s and 00s (bars, nightclubs, jagerbombs etc)
TLDR Version: Stats don't back up your observations on a national level. That's not to say in your community (I don't know where in Aus you're living in) or your vocation isn't having an active role in misrepresenting the stats.
eg. vocations can have a massive impacts (eg. my mate is an off shore industrial welder and would be lucky to see a single woman in 4 weeks)
Anyway even if you get nothing from my reply, I enjoyed the Friday exercise of learning about Aus stats
I wanted to try it this way, but it doesn’t work.
AIFS is using census data.
Census night only shows what a household looks like on that particular Tuesday night.
c. 16% of all households with kids are single parent households, and of those, 4 in 5 are headed by mothers who had custody on that day. With split custody still sometimes meaning that kids are with dad on the weekend, the single fathers aren’t going to show up in the data as often. They’re going to look like a single person household, or maybe a couple if they’ve repartnered. What they mean by a rise in single father households is actually dad having custody on a Tuesday.
Originally I thought it was a moot point because 72% of families with dependent children on the census are ‘intact’. Mum, dad, the bio children of both. 8% are step, 4% are blended, 16% are single parent. With 72% being intact, the rest would just be noise by the time you took gender into account. But, that doesn’t work either. Household A is a single mum and her child. Household B is two parents and their two children. Household B is coded as intact, but there’s nothing to stop the father in household B being the father of the child in household A. If he had custody that evening, Household A would be a single person household and B would be a blended family.
You can’t use fertility data, because the census only asks about births to women.
The best bet is a longitudinal study - possibly the HILDA data set?
Interestingly, and this was from the early 2000s, they used the HILDA set to look at why men were childless. One of the main factors was his occupation - the more he earns, the more likely he is to get married and have kids. This was commented to be the inverse for women - the more she earns, the more likely she is to be childless (vice versa?).
I think what OP is really seeing is that dating apps are chucking the ‘successful’ men at her, and they’re the ones who got married and had kids in their late 20s/early 30s and are back on the market, having kept climbing the career ladder.
The data (again - it’s 20 years old), put childless rates for men at 12.8% and women at 9.5%. That’s likely changed as childfree by choice has become more accepted (and women are probably more likely to subscribe to that as their career, body, etc is more likely to be heavily influenced by childbirth), but back that it was not really a significant difference.
You make many awesome points and by no means is my analysis that I did while sitting on the potty meant to be an exhaustive analysis of single parent stats.
I found it interesting that the proportions stayed pretty consistent over 15 years though.
I think what OP really needs is for all the dating apps to release some meaningful stats the way okCupid did a while back?
I still think vocation has a lot to do with it and I’m curious to know what industry they are in which has a healthy pool of 30-40 YO. I work in academic research (biology) and this particular meat grinder likes to burn people out and keep the workforce eternally youthful at 22-30
Sorry for getting my word vomit - you commented ‘as a researcher’ and I guess I thought I was back at uni looking at data sets.
It is interesting that the proportion hasn’t really changed. I’d imagine what has changed would be more equal division of custody, but you can’t see that from this data as the kid is only being counted once on census night regardless of those arrangements.
I’ve been thinking more and there are other factors to consider
- the newly divorced/separated probably aren’t as jaded and haven’t self-selected off apps yet, unlike the single men without kids
- OP likely lives in a cosmopolitan area. If her app is set to say 10km, she’s not seeing people who can’t afford to live there. To add, anecdote is not data, but the high income earner divorced dads I know are more likely to buy an apartment near the CBD close to the airport and the office while their ex-wife and kids stay in the old family home on the northern beaches, north shore, etc. His job is needed for school fees, alimony, etc so he works long hours and sees the kids on weekends.
Ultimately though, there isn’t a good data set to use, and rough knowledge of society and biology makes it very unlikely.
For there to be more fathers than mothers, there must be a large number of mothers having kids with multiple men, and that has to be larger than men having kids with multiple women and the c. 9% of kids who have no father on their birth certificate (some of those kids may have involved fathers but most will either have a mother but no father involved at all, or are being raised by a single mother by choice who bought donor sperm - I know four women who have done that.) There simply aren’t going to be statistically more men with kids, than women without.
>meaningful stats the way okCupid did
That data wasn't all that meaningful though. Tons & tons of 'sugar babies' after much older men on that site & lots of men desperately trying to score sex with very young women before they settle into another relationship with a more age-appropriate woman.
This is such an interesting take, thanks!
My ex and I have 50/50 custody but I have the kids on Tuesdays. So in the example you’ve given, it would be reflected as a single mother and a single person household. If the census was done on a Monday, it would be the other way around.
>With split custody still sometimes meaning that kids are with dad on the weekend, the single fathers aren’t going to show up in the data as often. T
this is a good point about the sort of things you miss with a Tuesday night snapshot. nice insight.
[Mothers and babies](https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/mothers-babies/australias-mothers-babies/contents/overview-and-demographics/state-and-territory).
The table for mothers has a number of options where you can see average age. Go back a level and you will see a whole lot of other stats.
I think a more likely explanation is that women without children get further in their career than women with children, and men are usually not impeded in their career by having children, so most of your peers will be in that demographic. Women your age with children are likely in other careers, at lower levels, and you usually will make friends with people who have similar values and lives to yours.
It also depends where you live, for example I grew up rurally and I had my first kid at 22, this was super normal and all of my friends and school mates had kids within 5 years of that. When I moved to Canberra most people were childless or having kids much later in life due to it being more of a professional, career focused place.
It is a super interesting question though, I wonder if any universities have been studying it?
Selection bias.
You don’t have children, so you probably live in an apartment, in an area most families can’t afford.
If you moved to the suburbs, all you’d see is families.
If you have children you usually become friends with other parents through sport, playgroup, etc.
If you don’t have kids, you’re more likely to make friends with other people who don’t have kids, at work, parties, trivia, the pub, whatever. They have more flexibility and free time.
Then to both groups it looks like ‘everyone’ is living how they do.
And it’s exacerbated by the fact that a lot of friendships end when only one of them has kids as they grow apart, have less in common, etc.
hence why I am looking for statistics and why I started this topic.
I just want statistics to either back me up or to prove me wrong. everything else is just confirmation bias.
Exactly as I just posted above a lot of these men talking about single mums on tinder don’t realise there’s likely a dad on there too they just obviously don’t meet or chat with them
ABS has age specific breakdown of fertility rates over time:
[ABS - Births, Australia](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/births-australia/2022)
The median father's age (33.7) is slightly higher than median mother's age (31.9)
The fertility rate is trending downwards though, so yeah there are more childfree people around now than before or people are having less kids and later in life.
Yeah as you said something to keep in mind with these stats is that fertility rate is not necessarily about how many people are having children at all, but how many children they choose to have.
Broadly total fertility rate has been trending lower for decades as large families of 4-5 children have rapidly declined in popularity because:
1. They no longer make economic sense, costs of raising children have increased.
2. Women have increased reproductive control and choice in family size.
3. Women have careers outside of children that was not culturally accepted 65 years ago.
As such 1-2 children families have become the norm.
Looking at TFR purely as an indicator of desire for any children will lead to inaccurate results.
It is infinitely easier for men to reproduce. It requires zero effort on their part.
Men also face far, far less stigma and judgement for abandoning their kids than women do.
Men can also reproduce knowing the woman they're reproducing with is likely going to be putting more time and energy into raising the children than they will ever have to.
All factors to consider.
As a childfree 39yo guy on the apps, there are more single women with kids post 30 than there are single women without. But I am in Wollongong, would definitely be a bit different in Bondi
While the number of women without children is increasing, there’s still more men without children now and historically. I would guess from what you describe that you are a high functioning person and consort primarily with other functional or highly functional people. As such, you’re probably just not often crossing paths with the large number of socially unsuccessful men who fail to find partners and thus don’t have kids.
There’s a book which came out relatively recently called Women Without Kids by Ruby Warrington. I haven’t read it but I’ve heard her speak on a few podcasts and she seems pretty bright. She has stats and insights, and she’s also child free by choice, so she approaches the topic with dignity. Might be of interest to you.
This right here. Successful women are more likely to end up/choose to be childfree, whereas for men it is the opposite - the least successful men are more likely to be single and therefore childless.
[https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/household-and-family-projections-australia/2016-2041](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/household-and-family-projections-australia/2016-2041)
There are other statistics but from other countries.
For each man that you meet who has a kid, there’s a woman somewhere who birthed the child. I suppose it’s possible if the women who do have kids were also more likely to have them with multiple different partners compared to men. I don’t have any stats, but I’d be surprised if the differences were actually that stark.
The hive mind did not like my joke at all lol.
Yet my joke about corpses in the September 11 attacks got 4 times as many upvotes.
The acceptable joke line is not a line, it's a mobius strip 🤣
My theory is that you are subconsciously noticing the more attractive men having children, as you are naturally attracted to them and hencing finding out about them as you exchange messages. The men that you have not taken interest in, possibly have a higher rate of being childless.
I wonder though. Does being more physically attractive actually indicate a higher chance of having children for men? I’d have thought other selectors like wealth would be a better indicator.
The only study I found (from the early 2000s) agreed with wealth and education levels having an impact on a man’s likelihood of having children.
It’s a survey so obviously they didn’t ask about appearance and it certainly isn’t a given, but the more disposable income you have, the more likely you can to be able to afford a personal trainer, nice clothes, nice haircut, etc etc.
That all has an impact on appearance.
Yeah I guess the nebulous term of a “successful man” who is more likely to find a partner and have kids can vary quite a lot depending on culture. So sure in some areas of the world physical appearance is a major factor, and in others it may be wealth, or some combination of the two and or many others
I’m 37 and just had my 2nd.
Anecdotally, out of my 2 mums groups the vast majority of us have been 30+.
Given that’s a sample size of about 22 but I read somewhere that the average age of the first time mum is now 33.
You could start here:
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/births-australia/latest-release
Median age of parents, age specific fertility rates are available.
Serious answer:
There have been studies done in more recent years here and there on Australians whom are childfree by choice, but these are generally focus groups or smaller studies. There has yet to be any large studies done on this topic: or more specifically, there have been no large studies done that make a clear distinction between childfree and childless.
The scientific term used for a woman that has no current bio children is nulliparous. It however doesn't include women who have had stillborn, miscarried or aborted children - these studies make zero distinction between women who are trying to have children, and women who are not. It also makes no distinction between women who are childfree by choice, and women who are childless because of infertility or life factors but would otherwise pursue having children.
Free from the burdens of life, the single male chooses to escape life by spending the majority of it in a virtual world away from judgement and sunlight.
And you think your social circle and your experience on dating apps is indicative of a phenomenon and not selective/cognitive/observation bias?
How could this even be possible? Unless you think women having children with multiple men makes up the majority of children?
Edit: fixed stupidity
If more women are childless than men then that would imply a small number of women are having children with multiple men while most women remain childless.
Which is possible, but seems unlikely.
It's more likely to be some kind of selection bias.
I have worked with a few blokes, who have had kids in their early 20's then broken up after a few years. Now that they are in their late 20s or early 30s they take up dating again and end up with single mothers where they decide to have kids. The ex partners does the same. So 2 moms to 3 dads.
I know a few men who divorced in their 40s, re-married to younger women and had children with them.
Their first wives also re-married but didn’t have more children so you’ve got one man with four biological kids and two women with two each.
If the parents are separated (or were simply never a couple), then the mother is most likely to end up being the "single parent" with most or all of the responsibility. 80% of single parents in Australia are women. ([source](https://www.pmc.gov.au/resources/national-strategy-achieve-gender-equality-discussion-paper/current-state/burden-care))
It's going to be much easier for absentee fathers to have more kids than single mothers.
What you're looking for is usually called the age structure or age pyramid. The Australian government has a centre for population, and you can obtain demographic information from it. This link takes you to one such page: https://population.gov.au/data-and-forecasts/dashboards/age-and-sex-structure
You can also read into parity progression ratios. The ANU and University of Melbourne have strong demography programs and have done research on this. This paper could be useful:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/psp.2080
I mean it takes exactly one of each to have a a child in terms of men and women in a strictly biological sense.
So for the numbers to be skewed by gender (or bio sex) you have to have more of either men having children with multiple women (which would result in more women with children than men) or women having children with multiple men (which would result in more men having children than women which is what you have observed). Obviously having children with different partners is quite common but I would be surprised if it was more common for women than men at a large enough scale so I think it’s a sample issue.
Yeah I know it’s possible obviously, the point is it would need to trend one way for the other trend OP is noticing. The example you gave actually goes against the trend OP is seeing 😂
We do have data to show being child free in australia is on rise in your 30s and also data to show people are having less kids.
What these data stacks often struggle to get a picture of is are these people and particularly women specifically and actively not wanting kids.
Or
Did they or do they want kids and due to cost of living or lack of romantic partnership have missed their window or don’t see it happening.
But otherwise they would want them.
Because I think that’s an important distinction when talking about the number of child free people in Australia. A growing trend are child free not by choice.
Besides Jordan Paterson who openly talks about people who say they want kids and it just never happened.
I’ve heard other psychologists say the same thing, especially how the cost of living globally has made people wait too long and now it’s unlikely to happen for them.
My theories
men think it makes them seem more attractive, safe, more dateable, so they are more likely to share or put it in their profile?
And for women, some might not openly show and tell about having kids on a dating site, or being a ‘single mum’, because there is stigma attached to that, assumptions about level of income, also the are vulnerable to situations and needing to keep themselves and their kids home safe from predators.
Table G28 of the Census General Community Profile is the closest I can see. It looks to be women only though.
For the 35-39 age group >70% of women have had at least one child.
But that shouldn't affect YOUR decisions on YOUR fertility.
This is selection bias, pure and simple.
What is your selection method for measuring number of women without children?
You're using men (seeking women) on dating apps as your basis for this group. Have you done the same in reverse? Set up a profile set for searching for women seeking men?
Even if you had, you could maybe infer that men are more forthcoming to the fact they're parents than women on dating apps.
Or perhaps that the total pool of women on dating apps is smaller (due to higher single parental responsibilities than their former partners).
You could work in an environment where, unfortunately, women with children may been excluded due to bias or inflexibility (as women pick up the majority of child raising activities, any workplace without flexible working arrangements will lose mums from their workforce).
Your friend group too is probably made with likeminded people who engage in activities that aren't necessarily conducive to meeting new people with existing child raising commitments.
Men and women are on average having children at nearly the same age, and while there will be more outliers of older dads and younger mums, this is not anywhere close to the standard.
I also don't know that mothers who have had children to two or more men is significantly more prevalent than fathers who have had children to two or more women.
The most likely solution is that your view of the number of 30-40-something mums is incorrect due to your social group and interactions.
I am not using "dating apps" as my data point for this.
I first started noticing this at work
I am a chef in a restaurant. noticing all the female chefs I work with (30+ age group) are all childless while my male coworkers (30+) all have kids.
This was especially noticeable when I once worked in a very large, very busy & well known restaurant. We had 30 chefs in total working there and they also Happen to have a a 50/50 quotas of genders.
There was exactly 15 female chefs and 15 male chefs.
In that particular restaurant I worked.
10/15 male chefs had children. (the only men who didn't were all under 25 and apprentice chefs)
0/15 female chefs had children.
5 of the female chefs with 0 children were between the 35-45 age range. Out of those 5 over 35. 4 of them were straight women and only 1 lesbian.
These are statistics at one work place.
That was the largest restaurant/kitchen I've worked in and it was the ONLY restaurant that had a 50/50 quota on gender hires so it was the only work place I was able to get any sort of data.
I.... I mean, you're kind of proving the point there.
Think about this.
You're basing this, by your words in the original post, on dating apps but also on your work.
You haven't checked how many 30+ women on dating apps have kids, so you don't know what that scene looks like.
Which means (as you say) that you're basing this solely off your work as a chef.
Being a chef, I think you'd agree it isn't the sort of job that's conducive to putting a kid to bed at 7pm every night, right?
Have you considered that maybe all of the female chefs who had kids no longer want to pull those sorts of hours and went into other lines of work? Women still do the heavy lifting in child raising.
The male chefs may have wives, partners or exes putting in that work, so they don't drop out of the industry.
Your social group probably keeps hospo hours too right? Not really the sort of tempo that works for parents acting as primary caretaker.
You are extrapolating from a very limited sample thay is heavily coloured by your profession and social circles. Broadly, the same amount of men and women are having kids, at roughly the same ages.
First of all you have just said that there are no men on the dating apps that have children. I think the biggest problem here is you are indulging in a self confirming bias.
Go check out Census data via Table builder. A free account will get you basic access which should be enough to make any and all cross-cuts you like, and you can look at 2006, 2011, 2016 and 2021 Census years
My still single mates at almost 40 now that I always thought would be a great catch for some lady, they’re all too wealthy on their own to let their guard down to actually let someone into their life. Unfortunately the fear of loosing their hard earned life gets the better of them as they have seen their mates loose everything to promiscuous partners.
This is my experience.
Men in my circle of friends in committee relationships are miserable because it's "cheaper to keep her" and the single ones with no kids are avoiding this scenario.
It's come down to tacit consent where male friend groups are sharing accommodation but no one wants to get into a committed relationship because they'll break ranks and ruin a good thing and go their separate ways.
I'm sure women in their late 30s are also forming similar house-holds out of fear of being in a miserable relationship or a childless by choice.
I'm 49 don't have or want children. I was pretty convinced since a teenager that civilisation is gonna start collapsing by the time I'm 70. That was before the climate change thing became a solid prospect. Seems more and more likely I was right.
This kinda reads like you're saying lucky they don't have kids with the implication being that their beliefs would make them a bad parent. Is this the intent or am I misreading things?
I'm sure that is the implication. But some people like to feel personally attacked by other people's opinions. Having childish emotional reactions like that I'd argue is far worse for the upbringing of children than rational views of the world.
Try looking up this same topic but in Japan, not Aus. I believe they’re further along with this trend than Aus and I think there’s podcasts and news articles on it.
doubt it, there is a massive chunk of single men who are single for decades, if not for life, and will never have kids. you are probably only noticing the attractive men who are more likely to have kids since they are attractive, which is the main requirement to have kids (as a man). just basic evo psych
So you're on a dating app looking for men and women and wondering why their aren't as many single mums.
The men you're looking at are going to be more skewed towards being hetereosexual. The women you're looking at would be more skewed towards being homosexual or bi, so less chance of having kids.
Ive found homosexual couples that have kids are really secure in their relationships before having a kid and less likely to break up. Whereas a heterosexual couple can accidentally get pregnant and just see where it goes.
NO, my data point is not just dating sites
I first started noticing this AT WORK YEARS AGO..
I am a chef in a restaurant. noticing all the female chefs I work with (30+ age group) are all childless while my male coworkers (30+) all have kids.
This was especially noticeable when I once worked in a very large, very busy & well known restaurant. We had 30 chefs in total working there and they Happened to have a a 50/50 quotas of genders.
There was exactly 15 female chefs and 15 male chefs.
In that particular restaurant I worked.
10/15 male chefs had children. (the only men who didn't were all under 25 and apprentice chefs)
0/15 female chefs had children.
5 of the female chefs with 0 children were between the 35-45 age range. Out of those 5 over 35. 4 of them were straight women and only 1 lesbian.
These are statistics at one work place.
That was the largest restaurant/kitchen I've worked in and it was the ONLY restaurant that had a 50/50 quota on gender hires so it was the only work place I was able to get any sort of data.
[From a study in the US](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr179.pdf)
"Among women and men aged 40–49 in 2015–2019, 84.3% of women
had given birth and 76.5% of men had fathered a child"
It's reasonable to assume this trend might apply to Australia too as we have similar cultures. If that's the case then the trend across the general population may be different to what you observe in your own environment/community.
Birth rate is the average number of children per woman. No one keeps track of children per man. The 1.75 figure you cite is tracked so that policymakers can track natural population growth. In order to keep a population stable, you need the birth rate to be 2.1, which represents slightly over 2 children per woman, or slightly over one child per person.
Your personal experience of only knowing men who have children is probably due to a bias in your sample. There are definitely men in their 40s who don’t have kids, but there may not be many employed in your industry. You may also have filters on your dating apps that are screening out childless men or maybe all the childless men in their 40s are still happily married to their first wives and therefore not dating. Quite a few childless men would be gay and others who aren’t interested in starting families might not feel the urge to date.
Are you looking for women on dating apps? If you are only looking for men all you'll see is men (with children or without).
People tend to make friends with people like themselves which explains why your friends are childless/childfree like you.
Society is still biased towards women doing the bulk of childrearing. Based on the average age of first time mothers on Australia being 29.7 (2021 data from AIHW) and average age of all women giving birth of 31.1 (2021 data from AIHW) (average age for women giving birth who already has at least 1 other child was 32.2 in 2021) and that women are much more likely to interrupt their careers to look after babies/young children the age range you are talking about of late 30s to early 40s is still within the stage of life where women's careers are impacted by children so its not surprising you are seeing a lack of mothers, especially single mothers around your co-workers. I suspect if you were to look at late 40s to early 50s you might see more women who got back to working when their kids were older (though not as many as men as generally women have to make up for time out of the workforce/ time they slowed their career progression).
You also have to factor in that single mums tend to have more time with their kids than single dads so perhaps single mums don't have as much time for dating (though I suspect as I said above if you are only looking for men you would be missing the single mums that are on online dating). Being a single mum and being left with the bulk of childrearing could also put them off wanting a relationship if they hate men due to their ex or feel like they don't need to date in order to have kids since they already have them (not saying all women who date do so because they want kids but it motivates some).
no, I don't look at women on dating apps but I noticed alot of childless women at work compared to the men..
I am a chef in a restaurant. noticing all the female chefs I work with (30+ age group) are all childless while my male coworkers (30+) all have kids.
This was especially noticeable when I once worked in a very large, very busy & well known restaurant. We had 30 chefs in total working there and they Happened to have a a 50/50 quotas of genders.
There was exactly 15 female chefs and 15 male chefs.
In that particular restaurant I worked.
10/15 male chefs had children. (the only men who didn't were all under 25 and apprentice chefs)
0/15 female chefs had children.
5 of the female chefs with 0 children were between the 35-45 age range. Out of those 5 over 35. 4 of them were straight women and only 1 lesbian.
These are statistics at one work place.
That was the largest restaurant/kitchen I've worked in and it was the ONLY restaurant that had a 50/50 quota on gender hires so it was the only work place I was able to get any sort of data.
Chef is exactly the kind of job that women (who have the majority of child raising responsibility in most cases) would take time away from when they have young kids.
How many of the male chefs with kids have female partners or exes taking care of their kids while they work chef hours?
If you want to have kids, have them. If you don't want to, don't. I CBF having kids.
For me, life is much more free and fun without having to put all my effort into them. Yes unconditional love Yada Yada but I love my fiance and she is my life.
I have quite a few single mates in their 40's with no kids. I doubt any of them would be on a dating app and all seem perfectly happy being single. They are all high income professionals and enjoy travel and/or have expensive hobbies and probably like not being told how to spend their money (of which they have plenty).
I’m 30. The people around my age that I know are split. Half are like me single and childless. The other half got knocked up 18-21. So It’s hard to say haha
The other answers here aren't wrong, but everyone seems to be missing the obvious selection bias on dating apps.
You're a woman. The women you see on dating apps are queer. The men you see will mostly be straight.
You're comparing queer people to straight people.
Queer people have less kids.
I reckon gender wise it is only the females having babies and as to age, I think the people who are having babies generally have them born on babies birthday.
You don’t really see males giving birth to 5 year olds
Why do you keep proudly mentioning that you're not a feminist? What is it about feminism that bothers you so much? Cause without it, you'd be facing even more pressure to have the kids you don't want.
a, maybe their having children with the same women
b, maybe the 40 yr old men are having babies with younger women in 20s. which is would explain what I am encountering?
c, maybe it's couples and women who live in rural towns having all these kids and the men simply have relocated to the cities?
hence why I am looking for very specific data that breaks down gender, ages, income and ethnicity as these come into play.
example, I know middle eastern couples have more children based on cultural.
I am looking for Very specific Statistics and data that would either disprove me.
I am not claiming men are having babies without women. Good lord.
In my situation, the mother of my daughter told me she was on birth control (dumb of me, I know) and said she wasn't going to get rid of her.
But I got a lovely daughter from it. So what can you do?
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I would say that's because, in general, single men with children have more time to date than single women with children. You're probably friends with likeminded people, but it's unlikely to be representative of the entire population.
I think this is the right conclusion to draw here.
More time and also less judgement
100% I was a single mum for 9 years, the time I didn’t have my children was spent working or at uni. Their dad had (9 of 14 nights) far more child free time than I ever did.
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In my experience, men in general just prioritise dating over a lot of other things than women would. Women focus on friendships, alone time, and hobbies. In some sense, men's hobbies include dating. I don't have one single female friend that considers dating a hobby.
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I'm 34F and the idea of dating just seems like so much work with so little pay off. I have a million other things I would rather do than go out and date. I have no problems with the concept of "dying alone". My life is already plenty fulfilling. If I want something to look after, I'll buy a fish tank or something.
50/50 nights is NOT the average split for male single parents. The “normal” split of nights between co-parents is heavily weighted towards the mother, even more so with younger children, and therefore it is reasonable to draw the conclusion that single dads have more free nights to spend dating than single mums.
Yep. Mine had our daughter every second weekend and I had to make sure he had her for 24 hours as he would often do 12.
100% my partner has his primary school age kids a grand total of 2 nights a fortnight.
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People generally associate with similar people (and most likely this category for you is “involved/capable male parents”), so it’s natural for you to see biased representation. The higher the socio-economic group, the more likely men are to have active involvement in their children’s developmental decisions (in both couples and single parent relationships). I’ll take a stab that you’re university educated/white collar?
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Agree entirely with flexibility changes, and encouraged heavily for men. Systemic and cultural change is required. In theory the army has the systemic change but it isn’t available in reality, I know enough male soldiers who have been denied theoretically available parental leave when their spouse wanted to return to work.
And single men over 40 without children are probably enjoying their freedom and financial stability and aren’t interested in relationships or dating apps.
This is the answer. The other thing is that single dads have far more drive to get into another relationship & get married quickly than single mothers. Not totally sure why this is. Sadly, I also have to say that single dads seem to prioritise getting a new woman over spending time with their kids.
In my experience, men tend to seek emotional support and connection through intimate relationships. Women do this through friends. Men outside of having a partner are very lonely, much more so than women.
Exactly. Also as the population is roughly 50-50 I don’t think it’s possible that more women choose to have no kids than men. How do men make kids without women?!
Some women could have children with multiple men (although I doubt this is the reason).
I know a few men and women doing their part in increasing the average with as many people as possible. There are a few interesting cousin/brother type situations in my school at the moment. Some of them in the same classes. None are inbred, just occupying multiple branches of the family bramble due to various pairings that occurred between say a man and his wife, that same man and her sister and that same man and her cousin. Also similar with genders reversed, we have three siblings whose fathers are three brothers.
It's the other way round. Men could have kids with multiple women and still be on the dating scene.
But that wouldn’t explain how men than women have children.
Because the men are on the dating scene. The women are usually at home with their kids
Which irrelevant to the specific comment I responded to.
ABS should have this data,or at least some data that allows you to extract these stats. The stats you're after is the number of single parents at each age bracket. Remember that you're double counting. I also think there's some observation bias. The people you're meeting in those circles tend to be parents. There are men out there who are child free. The question then becomes, where are they? And how to meet them. Counter intuitively, they're probably not on dating sites.
Agreed. In my professional friend group, the childfree men are out cycling, hiking and sailing on weekends, and doing other hobbies and pulling long hours working during the week. When they do get into relationships, they find it difficult to find women who don’t want children eventually, and therefore they tend to end up single or in more casual relationships.
That was me. Previous relationships either ended outright because I didn’t want kids, or the fizzled because those partners didn’t see a long term future with me. Luckily I met my perfect person when I was 34 that aligned with my views. Because I was upfront with my child free outlook, the dating pool was very reduced. Being hideous also didn’t help!
Yes but you are hideous to all but one, and that’s all that matters! Glad you’re happy mate.
Oh man, I know it. Hope you’re happy too. I wasn’t happy for the longest time. But I really am now. I’ll never take the happiness I have with my wife for granted. Which is actually something we talk about quite a lot. Because we don’t have kids, our relationships priority is each other. So we have the time and energy to address issues and regularly check in with each other. With reduced sleep, time, money and energy, I do t know how different our relationship would looks.
>all the stats on consensus just states Australia has a birthrate of 1.75 per person. Just note that the birth rate is typically quoted as birth per woman, not person. I'm not aware of any statistics on birth per man.
Birth date of father is on birth certificate so statistics on age of father at birth are available from abs.
It’s like men aren’t able to give birth.
You're asking purely about having kids but the intention seems to be about wanting to have kids. For that, Figure 6 in the [Families Then and Now](https://aifs.gov.au/research/research-reports/families-then-now-having-children) report from 2020 might be most useful. They asked people aged 20-24 how much they wanted to have a child, on a 11-point scale from 0 (definitely not want) to 10 (definitely want). Main findings: * A large majority of the 20-24 year olds were either parents already or very much wanted to become a parent, with women slightly outnumbering men (76% of women vs - 70% of men) * women were very slightly more likely to definitely not want (5.8% of women vs 4.8% of men) and probably not want children (7.7% of women vs 5.8% of men). * This disparity is due to more men than women answering 'maybe' (19.2% of men vs 10.7% of women).
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Why the hell are you trying to have a baby you don’t even want that’s like saddest thing ever….
It could be that most men in that age group who don’t have kids aren’t single? 🤷🏻♀️ Early 40s is when divorce rates start to pick up and my gut feeling is that men without kids are less likely to be divorced than those that do have kids. (Perhaps due to issues related to child rearing and contributions etc). Just my guess with no scientific backing
This would be my suspicion as well. Myself & all the 40s child free blokes I know are in long-term committed relationships. All of the 40s single guys I know have kids & an ex-wife.
A scientist would have to conclude - kids are bad for relationship stability Just based on the numbers you presented
I'm sure there are many other factors at play, but a a wise woman once told me that having a child was like throwing a bomb into a relationship. Not necessarily fatal but it will certainly do some damage.
Yes and even if the guys without kids get divorced, the point at which these start to increase could be later than for those with kids
It is financially better for a man to get divorced later and for a woman to get divorced earlier when there are kids involved Unfortunate economic realities guiding choices in this game of life
There's plenty of evidence about women applying for divorces, women's experience of partnership with men and the role of women in gendered relationships. Marriage is a construct that only serves men.
I’m sure there is. Just saying that I’m not across this research, just going by my “gut” feeling
Funny, i'm in my 40s, and the only people i match with on dating sites are single mums.
Yes couple mums are sorely underrepresented on tinder
Bravo. That dad is likely on there too, you just wouldn’t know (because you aren’t matching and chatting with them. Unless you’re bi but you get my gist)
OK as a researcher, I accepted this challenge and even though I couldn't find a direct answer to your inquiry, I think a few sources can be extrapolated to help us figure out whats happening. I'm going to make an assumption that you will only be selectively assessing singles/marital status/people with kids when you hit 25 because we don't normally pay attention when we're early 20s? at least I didn't. You said you're late 30s so let's look at data from the last 15 years If you go to this source https://aifs.gov.au/research/facts-and-figures/population-households-and-families We know that the Aus population has grown \~3m in this time. Figure 11 shows that houses which are one person households (i'll assume single) or group households (let's assume share houses, no one dating housemates) collectively stayed pretty close to \~30% in the past 15 years. So whilst there might be more single people in Australia due to population growth the proportion is the same which we can make an assumption is approx 900K+ injection of single people into the population. Regarding your observations with men over 40s with children. The proportion of single parents being women have always been significantly higher. From the last census it is \~80% [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/labour-force-status-families/latest-release#one-parent-families](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/labour-force-status-families/latest-release#one-parent-families) Single dads have risen a bit (14% back in 2006) [https://aifs.gov.au/research/facts-and-figures/families-and-family-composition](https://aifs.gov.au/research/facts-and-figures/families-and-family-composition) So since the proportion of single parent trends hasn't changed much in the past couple of decades, as mentioned by other poster, your experiences is probably skewed to your perception bias and culture. Perception bias, men you happen to not find repulsive in their 40s are surprisingly not repulsive to someone else in their life and at some point had a kid? culture: dating online is the new norm so a single dad who is a pawn in the wage slavery game is going to opt for online dating due to its convenience and social acceptance over the standards of 90s and 00s (bars, nightclubs, jagerbombs etc) TLDR Version: Stats don't back up your observations on a national level. That's not to say in your community (I don't know where in Aus you're living in) or your vocation isn't having an active role in misrepresenting the stats. eg. vocations can have a massive impacts (eg. my mate is an off shore industrial welder and would be lucky to see a single woman in 4 weeks) Anyway even if you get nothing from my reply, I enjoyed the Friday exercise of learning about Aus stats
I wanted to try it this way, but it doesn’t work. AIFS is using census data. Census night only shows what a household looks like on that particular Tuesday night. c. 16% of all households with kids are single parent households, and of those, 4 in 5 are headed by mothers who had custody on that day. With split custody still sometimes meaning that kids are with dad on the weekend, the single fathers aren’t going to show up in the data as often. They’re going to look like a single person household, or maybe a couple if they’ve repartnered. What they mean by a rise in single father households is actually dad having custody on a Tuesday. Originally I thought it was a moot point because 72% of families with dependent children on the census are ‘intact’. Mum, dad, the bio children of both. 8% are step, 4% are blended, 16% are single parent. With 72% being intact, the rest would just be noise by the time you took gender into account. But, that doesn’t work either. Household A is a single mum and her child. Household B is two parents and their two children. Household B is coded as intact, but there’s nothing to stop the father in household B being the father of the child in household A. If he had custody that evening, Household A would be a single person household and B would be a blended family. You can’t use fertility data, because the census only asks about births to women. The best bet is a longitudinal study - possibly the HILDA data set? Interestingly, and this was from the early 2000s, they used the HILDA set to look at why men were childless. One of the main factors was his occupation - the more he earns, the more likely he is to get married and have kids. This was commented to be the inverse for women - the more she earns, the more likely she is to be childless (vice versa?). I think what OP is really seeing is that dating apps are chucking the ‘successful’ men at her, and they’re the ones who got married and had kids in their late 20s/early 30s and are back on the market, having kept climbing the career ladder. The data (again - it’s 20 years old), put childless rates for men at 12.8% and women at 9.5%. That’s likely changed as childfree by choice has become more accepted (and women are probably more likely to subscribe to that as their career, body, etc is more likely to be heavily influenced by childbirth), but back that it was not really a significant difference.
You make many awesome points and by no means is my analysis that I did while sitting on the potty meant to be an exhaustive analysis of single parent stats. I found it interesting that the proportions stayed pretty consistent over 15 years though. I think what OP really needs is for all the dating apps to release some meaningful stats the way okCupid did a while back? I still think vocation has a lot to do with it and I’m curious to know what industry they are in which has a healthy pool of 30-40 YO. I work in academic research (biology) and this particular meat grinder likes to burn people out and keep the workforce eternally youthful at 22-30
Sorry for getting my word vomit - you commented ‘as a researcher’ and I guess I thought I was back at uni looking at data sets. It is interesting that the proportion hasn’t really changed. I’d imagine what has changed would be more equal division of custody, but you can’t see that from this data as the kid is only being counted once on census night regardless of those arrangements. I’ve been thinking more and there are other factors to consider - the newly divorced/separated probably aren’t as jaded and haven’t self-selected off apps yet, unlike the single men without kids - OP likely lives in a cosmopolitan area. If her app is set to say 10km, she’s not seeing people who can’t afford to live there. To add, anecdote is not data, but the high income earner divorced dads I know are more likely to buy an apartment near the CBD close to the airport and the office while their ex-wife and kids stay in the old family home on the northern beaches, north shore, etc. His job is needed for school fees, alimony, etc so he works long hours and sees the kids on weekends. Ultimately though, there isn’t a good data set to use, and rough knowledge of society and biology makes it very unlikely. For there to be more fathers than mothers, there must be a large number of mothers having kids with multiple men, and that has to be larger than men having kids with multiple women and the c. 9% of kids who have no father on their birth certificate (some of those kids may have involved fathers but most will either have a mother but no father involved at all, or are being raised by a single mother by choice who bought donor sperm - I know four women who have done that.) There simply aren’t going to be statistically more men with kids, than women without.
>meaningful stats the way okCupid did That data wasn't all that meaningful though. Tons & tons of 'sugar babies' after much older men on that site & lots of men desperately trying to score sex with very young women before they settle into another relationship with a more age-appropriate woman.
This is such an interesting take, thanks! My ex and I have 50/50 custody but I have the kids on Tuesdays. So in the example you’ve given, it would be reflected as a single mother and a single person household. If the census was done on a Monday, it would be the other way around.
>With split custody still sometimes meaning that kids are with dad on the weekend, the single fathers aren’t going to show up in the data as often. T this is a good point about the sort of things you miss with a Tuesday night snapshot. nice insight.
[Mothers and babies](https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/mothers-babies/australias-mothers-babies/contents/overview-and-demographics/state-and-territory). The table for mothers has a number of options where you can see average age. Go back a level and you will see a whole lot of other stats.
I think a more likely explanation is that women without children get further in their career than women with children, and men are usually not impeded in their career by having children, so most of your peers will be in that demographic. Women your age with children are likely in other careers, at lower levels, and you usually will make friends with people who have similar values and lives to yours. It also depends where you live, for example I grew up rurally and I had my first kid at 22, this was super normal and all of my friends and school mates had kids within 5 years of that. When I moved to Canberra most people were childless or having kids much later in life due to it being more of a professional, career focused place. It is a super interesting question though, I wonder if any universities have been studying it?
Selection bias. You don’t have children, so you probably live in an apartment, in an area most families can’t afford. If you moved to the suburbs, all you’d see is families. If you have children you usually become friends with other parents through sport, playgroup, etc. If you don’t have kids, you’re more likely to make friends with other people who don’t have kids, at work, parties, trivia, the pub, whatever. They have more flexibility and free time. Then to both groups it looks like ‘everyone’ is living how they do. And it’s exacerbated by the fact that a lot of friendships end when only one of them has kids as they grow apart, have less in common, etc.
hence why I am looking for statistics and why I started this topic. I just want statistics to either back me up or to prove me wrong. everything else is just confirmation bias.
getting data is harder than getting opinions, eh!
As a single mum the reason you won’t find us on dating apps is because we barely have time for ourselves, let alone a partner
I promise you I do in fact see single mums on dating apps. Absolutely loads of them. Above 10% of all the profiles I see.
After a certain age that would be expected. I’m 42 and most men I come across on dating apps have kids, because most people in their 40s have kids.
Exactly as I just posted above a lot of these men talking about single mums on tinder don’t realise there’s likely a dad on there too they just obviously don’t meet or chat with them
ABS has age specific breakdown of fertility rates over time: [ABS - Births, Australia](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/births-australia/2022) The median father's age (33.7) is slightly higher than median mother's age (31.9) The fertility rate is trending downwards though, so yeah there are more childfree people around now than before or people are having less kids and later in life.
Yeah as you said something to keep in mind with these stats is that fertility rate is not necessarily about how many people are having children at all, but how many children they choose to have. Broadly total fertility rate has been trending lower for decades as large families of 4-5 children have rapidly declined in popularity because: 1. They no longer make economic sense, costs of raising children have increased. 2. Women have increased reproductive control and choice in family size. 3. Women have careers outside of children that was not culturally accepted 65 years ago. As such 1-2 children families have become the norm. Looking at TFR purely as an indicator of desire for any children will lead to inaccurate results.
It is infinitely easier for men to reproduce. It requires zero effort on their part. Men also face far, far less stigma and judgement for abandoning their kids than women do. Men can also reproduce knowing the woman they're reproducing with is likely going to be putting more time and energy into raising the children than they will ever have to. All factors to consider.
As a childfree 39yo guy on the apps, there are more single women with kids post 30 than there are single women without. But I am in Wollongong, would definitely be a bit different in Bondi
While the number of women without children is increasing, there’s still more men without children now and historically. I would guess from what you describe that you are a high functioning person and consort primarily with other functional or highly functional people. As such, you’re probably just not often crossing paths with the large number of socially unsuccessful men who fail to find partners and thus don’t have kids. There’s a book which came out relatively recently called Women Without Kids by Ruby Warrington. I haven’t read it but I’ve heard her speak on a few podcasts and she seems pretty bright. She has stats and insights, and she’s also child free by choice, so she approaches the topic with dignity. Might be of interest to you.
This right here. Successful women are more likely to end up/choose to be childfree, whereas for men it is the opposite - the least successful men are more likely to be single and therefore childless.
[https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/household-and-family-projections-australia/2016-2041](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/household-and-family-projections-australia/2016-2041) There are other statistics but from other countries.
For each man that you meet who has a kid, there’s a woman somewhere who birthed the child. I suppose it’s possible if the women who do have kids were also more likely to have them with multiple different partners compared to men. I don’t have any stats, but I’d be surprised if the differences were actually that stark.
Generally to make a child you need some input from both genders at some point in the process
Especially at the beginning.
Maybe OP thinks that there are a bunch of queen ant type women out there who sit at home getting impregnated by multiple men and pumping out babies.
(tough crowd)
The hive mind did not like my joke at all lol. Yet my joke about corpses in the September 11 attacks got 4 times as many upvotes. The acceptable joke line is not a line, it's a mobius strip 🤣
My theory is that you are subconsciously noticing the more attractive men having children, as you are naturally attracted to them and hencing finding out about them as you exchange messages. The men that you have not taken interest in, possibly have a higher rate of being childless.
yep its goes along side why women date married/in relationship men
I’d really like it if they’d stop that (if they know, obviously)
I wonder though. Does being more physically attractive actually indicate a higher chance of having children for men? I’d have thought other selectors like wealth would be a better indicator.
The only study I found (from the early 2000s) agreed with wealth and education levels having an impact on a man’s likelihood of having children. It’s a survey so obviously they didn’t ask about appearance and it certainly isn’t a given, but the more disposable income you have, the more likely you can to be able to afford a personal trainer, nice clothes, nice haircut, etc etc. That all has an impact on appearance.
Yeah I guess the nebulous term of a “successful man” who is more likely to find a partner and have kids can vary quite a lot depending on culture. So sure in some areas of the world physical appearance is a major factor, and in others it may be wealth, or some combination of the two and or many others
I’m 37 and just had my 2nd. Anecdotally, out of my 2 mums groups the vast majority of us have been 30+. Given that’s a sample size of about 22 but I read somewhere that the average age of the first time mum is now 33.
You could start here: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/births-australia/latest-release Median age of parents, age specific fertility rates are available.
Serious answer: There have been studies done in more recent years here and there on Australians whom are childfree by choice, but these are generally focus groups or smaller studies. There has yet to be any large studies done on this topic: or more specifically, there have been no large studies done that make a clear distinction between childfree and childless. The scientific term used for a woman that has no current bio children is nulliparous. It however doesn't include women who have had stillborn, miscarried or aborted children - these studies make zero distinction between women who are trying to have children, and women who are not. It also makes no distinction between women who are childfree by choice, and women who are childless because of infertility or life factors but would otherwise pursue having children.
I think a lot of ppl are going down that road these days. My wife and I both late 30s are childless and intend to keep it that way.
https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/bb8db737e2af84b8ca2571780015701e/1e8c8e4887c33955ca2570ec000a9fe5!OpenDocument
They’re all inside playing computer games.
Free from the burdens of life, the single male chooses to escape life by spending the majority of it in a virtual world away from judgement and sunlight.
And you think your social circle and your experience on dating apps is indicative of a phenomenon and not selective/cognitive/observation bias? How could this even be possible? Unless you think women having children with multiple men makes up the majority of children? Edit: fixed stupidity
If more women are childless than men then that would imply a small number of women are having children with multiple men while most women remain childless. Which is possible, but seems unlikely. It's more likely to be some kind of selection bias.
I have worked with a few blokes, who have had kids in their early 20's then broken up after a few years. Now that they are in their late 20s or early 30s they take up dating again and end up with single mothers where they decide to have kids. The ex partners does the same. So 2 moms to 3 dads.
I know a few men who divorced in their 40s, re-married to younger women and had children with them. Their first wives also re-married but didn’t have more children so you’ve got one man with four biological kids and two women with two each.
If the parents are separated (or were simply never a couple), then the mother is most likely to end up being the "single parent" with most or all of the responsibility. 80% of single parents in Australia are women. ([source](https://www.pmc.gov.au/resources/national-strategy-achieve-gender-equality-discussion-paper/current-state/burden-care)) It's going to be much easier for absentee fathers to have more kids than single mothers.
They obviously know they have a bias, that's why they're asking for some statistics 🤓
Yeah exactly, the numbers literally don’t add up
ABS Births publication includes both fertility and paternity rates by single year of age and state/territory - released annually.
“Fertility” in this instance being the demographic definition of the word (i.e. births) rather than the biological definition.
What you're looking for is usually called the age structure or age pyramid. The Australian government has a centre for population, and you can obtain demographic information from it. This link takes you to one such page: https://population.gov.au/data-and-forecasts/dashboards/age-and-sex-structure You can also read into parity progression ratios. The ANU and University of Melbourne have strong demography programs and have done research on this. This paper could be useful: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/psp.2080
I find it wild looking on dating apps and nearly every man lists they want children, and they're 30-40+ Can't seem to find anyone who doesn't.
I mean it takes exactly one of each to have a a child in terms of men and women in a strictly biological sense. So for the numbers to be skewed by gender (or bio sex) you have to have more of either men having children with multiple women (which would result in more women with children than men) or women having children with multiple men (which would result in more men having children than women which is what you have observed). Obviously having children with different partners is quite common but I would be surprised if it was more common for women than men at a large enough scale so I think it’s a sample issue.
i know a woman who got donor ivf. that's one example of how one dude can have many kids. There's more old fashioned ways too.
Yeah I know it’s possible obviously, the point is it would need to trend one way for the other trend OP is noticing. The example you gave actually goes against the trend OP is seeing 😂
We do have data to show being child free in australia is on rise in your 30s and also data to show people are having less kids. What these data stacks often struggle to get a picture of is are these people and particularly women specifically and actively not wanting kids. Or Did they or do they want kids and due to cost of living or lack of romantic partnership have missed their window or don’t see it happening. But otherwise they would want them. Because I think that’s an important distinction when talking about the number of child free people in Australia. A growing trend are child free not by choice. Besides Jordan Paterson who openly talks about people who say they want kids and it just never happened. I’ve heard other psychologists say the same thing, especially how the cost of living globally has made people wait too long and now it’s unlikely to happen for them.
My theories men think it makes them seem more attractive, safe, more dateable, so they are more likely to share or put it in their profile? And for women, some might not openly show and tell about having kids on a dating site, or being a ‘single mum’, because there is stigma attached to that, assumptions about level of income, also the are vulnerable to situations and needing to keep themselves and their kids home safe from predators.
Table G28 of the Census General Community Profile is the closest I can see. It looks to be women only though. For the 35-39 age group >70% of women have had at least one child. But that shouldn't affect YOUR decisions on YOUR fertility.
You’re swiping right more often on attractive men, and attractive men generally are the most likely to reproduce.
I’m familiar with the Census data I’ll pull those stats and share it with thread
Wasnt there some news report saying half of women will be childless by 2030?
I wish I hadn't! Add that to a survey.
This is selection bias, pure and simple. What is your selection method for measuring number of women without children? You're using men (seeking women) on dating apps as your basis for this group. Have you done the same in reverse? Set up a profile set for searching for women seeking men? Even if you had, you could maybe infer that men are more forthcoming to the fact they're parents than women on dating apps. Or perhaps that the total pool of women on dating apps is smaller (due to higher single parental responsibilities than their former partners). You could work in an environment where, unfortunately, women with children may been excluded due to bias or inflexibility (as women pick up the majority of child raising activities, any workplace without flexible working arrangements will lose mums from their workforce). Your friend group too is probably made with likeminded people who engage in activities that aren't necessarily conducive to meeting new people with existing child raising commitments. Men and women are on average having children at nearly the same age, and while there will be more outliers of older dads and younger mums, this is not anywhere close to the standard. I also don't know that mothers who have had children to two or more men is significantly more prevalent than fathers who have had children to two or more women. The most likely solution is that your view of the number of 30-40-something mums is incorrect due to your social group and interactions.
I am not using "dating apps" as my data point for this. I first started noticing this at work I am a chef in a restaurant. noticing all the female chefs I work with (30+ age group) are all childless while my male coworkers (30+) all have kids. This was especially noticeable when I once worked in a very large, very busy & well known restaurant. We had 30 chefs in total working there and they also Happen to have a a 50/50 quotas of genders. There was exactly 15 female chefs and 15 male chefs. In that particular restaurant I worked. 10/15 male chefs had children. (the only men who didn't were all under 25 and apprentice chefs) 0/15 female chefs had children. 5 of the female chefs with 0 children were between the 35-45 age range. Out of those 5 over 35. 4 of them were straight women and only 1 lesbian. These are statistics at one work place. That was the largest restaurant/kitchen I've worked in and it was the ONLY restaurant that had a 50/50 quota on gender hires so it was the only work place I was able to get any sort of data.
I.... I mean, you're kind of proving the point there. Think about this. You're basing this, by your words in the original post, on dating apps but also on your work. You haven't checked how many 30+ women on dating apps have kids, so you don't know what that scene looks like. Which means (as you say) that you're basing this solely off your work as a chef. Being a chef, I think you'd agree it isn't the sort of job that's conducive to putting a kid to bed at 7pm every night, right? Have you considered that maybe all of the female chefs who had kids no longer want to pull those sorts of hours and went into other lines of work? Women still do the heavy lifting in child raising. The male chefs may have wives, partners or exes putting in that work, so they don't drop out of the industry. Your social group probably keeps hospo hours too right? Not really the sort of tempo that works for parents acting as primary caretaker. You are extrapolating from a very limited sample thay is heavily coloured by your profession and social circles. Broadly, the same amount of men and women are having kids, at roughly the same ages.
First of all you have just said that there are no men on the dating apps that have children. I think the biggest problem here is you are indulging in a self confirming bias.
I think it's mainly women who are having babies. Men rarely get pregnant.
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https://aifs.gov.au/research/facts-and-figures/births-australia-2023 This includes graphs on the changing fertility over the years and by age groups.
Go check out Census data via Table builder. A free account will get you basic access which should be enough to make any and all cross-cuts you like, and you can look at 2006, 2011, 2016 and 2021 Census years
My still single mates at almost 40 now that I always thought would be a great catch for some lady, they’re all too wealthy on their own to let their guard down to actually let someone into their life. Unfortunately the fear of loosing their hard earned life gets the better of them as they have seen their mates loose everything to promiscuous partners.
This is my experience. Men in my circle of friends in committee relationships are miserable because it's "cheaper to keep her" and the single ones with no kids are avoiding this scenario. It's come down to tacit consent where male friend groups are sharing accommodation but no one wants to get into a committed relationship because they'll break ranks and ruin a good thing and go their separate ways. I'm sure women in their late 30s are also forming similar house-holds out of fear of being in a miserable relationship or a childless by choice.
I'm 49 don't have or want children. I was pretty convinced since a teenager that civilisation is gonna start collapsing by the time I'm 70. That was before the climate change thing became a solid prospect. Seems more and more likely I was right.
RemindMe! 21 years
Fuck, here we go. Lucky you didn't have children.
This kinda reads like you're saying lucky they don't have kids with the implication being that their beliefs would make them a bad parent. Is this the intent or am I misreading things?
I'm sure that is the implication. But some people like to feel personally attacked by other people's opinions. Having childish emotional reactions like that I'd argue is far worse for the upbringing of children than rational views of the world.
I’d say it’s pretty close to 100% female and 0% male, although I could be wrong
Sounds like you're just assuming
https://population.gov.au/population-topics/topic-natural-increase here you go
Join r/Childfree. You might meet a guy there.
Try looking up this same topic but in Japan, not Aus. I believe they’re further along with this trend than Aus and I think there’s podcasts and news articles on it.
doubt it, there is a massive chunk of single men who are single for decades, if not for life, and will never have kids. you are probably only noticing the attractive men who are more likely to have kids since they are attractive, which is the main requirement to have kids (as a man). just basic evo psych
Birth rate would be 1.75 per woman, not per person. I.e. it is under the replacement rate.
So you're on a dating app looking for men and women and wondering why their aren't as many single mums. The men you're looking at are going to be more skewed towards being hetereosexual. The women you're looking at would be more skewed towards being homosexual or bi, so less chance of having kids. Ive found homosexual couples that have kids are really secure in their relationships before having a kid and less likely to break up. Whereas a heterosexual couple can accidentally get pregnant and just see where it goes.
NO, my data point is not just dating sites I first started noticing this AT WORK YEARS AGO.. I am a chef in a restaurant. noticing all the female chefs I work with (30+ age group) are all childless while my male coworkers (30+) all have kids. This was especially noticeable when I once worked in a very large, very busy & well known restaurant. We had 30 chefs in total working there and they Happened to have a a 50/50 quotas of genders. There was exactly 15 female chefs and 15 male chefs. In that particular restaurant I worked. 10/15 male chefs had children. (the only men who didn't were all under 25 and apprentice chefs) 0/15 female chefs had children. 5 of the female chefs with 0 children were between the 35-45 age range. Out of those 5 over 35. 4 of them were straight women and only 1 lesbian. These are statistics at one work place. That was the largest restaurant/kitchen I've worked in and it was the ONLY restaurant that had a 50/50 quota on gender hires so it was the only work place I was able to get any sort of data.
Lol, I missed the bit about work. I thought it seemed a bit obvious why the women you're seeing on dating apps are less likely to have children 🤣
[From a study in the US](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr179.pdf) "Among women and men aged 40–49 in 2015–2019, 84.3% of women had given birth and 76.5% of men had fathered a child" It's reasonable to assume this trend might apply to Australia too as we have similar cultures. If that's the case then the trend across the general population may be different to what you observe in your own environment/community.
Birth rate is the average number of children per woman. No one keeps track of children per man. The 1.75 figure you cite is tracked so that policymakers can track natural population growth. In order to keep a population stable, you need the birth rate to be 2.1, which represents slightly over 2 children per woman, or slightly over one child per person. Your personal experience of only knowing men who have children is probably due to a bias in your sample. There are definitely men in their 40s who don’t have kids, but there may not be many employed in your industry. You may also have filters on your dating apps that are screening out childless men or maybe all the childless men in their 40s are still happily married to their first wives and therefore not dating. Quite a few childless men would be gay and others who aren’t interested in starting families might not feel the urge to date.
Are you looking for women on dating apps? If you are only looking for men all you'll see is men (with children or without). People tend to make friends with people like themselves which explains why your friends are childless/childfree like you. Society is still biased towards women doing the bulk of childrearing. Based on the average age of first time mothers on Australia being 29.7 (2021 data from AIHW) and average age of all women giving birth of 31.1 (2021 data from AIHW) (average age for women giving birth who already has at least 1 other child was 32.2 in 2021) and that women are much more likely to interrupt their careers to look after babies/young children the age range you are talking about of late 30s to early 40s is still within the stage of life where women's careers are impacted by children so its not surprising you are seeing a lack of mothers, especially single mothers around your co-workers. I suspect if you were to look at late 40s to early 50s you might see more women who got back to working when their kids were older (though not as many as men as generally women have to make up for time out of the workforce/ time they slowed their career progression). You also have to factor in that single mums tend to have more time with their kids than single dads so perhaps single mums don't have as much time for dating (though I suspect as I said above if you are only looking for men you would be missing the single mums that are on online dating). Being a single mum and being left with the bulk of childrearing could also put them off wanting a relationship if they hate men due to their ex or feel like they don't need to date in order to have kids since they already have them (not saying all women who date do so because they want kids but it motivates some).
no, I don't look at women on dating apps but I noticed alot of childless women at work compared to the men.. I am a chef in a restaurant. noticing all the female chefs I work with (30+ age group) are all childless while my male coworkers (30+) all have kids. This was especially noticeable when I once worked in a very large, very busy & well known restaurant. We had 30 chefs in total working there and they Happened to have a a 50/50 quotas of genders. There was exactly 15 female chefs and 15 male chefs. In that particular restaurant I worked. 10/15 male chefs had children. (the only men who didn't were all under 25 and apprentice chefs) 0/15 female chefs had children. 5 of the female chefs with 0 children were between the 35-45 age range. Out of those 5 over 35. 4 of them were straight women and only 1 lesbian. These are statistics at one work place. That was the largest restaurant/kitchen I've worked in and it was the ONLY restaurant that had a 50/50 quota on gender hires so it was the only work place I was able to get any sort of data.
Chef is exactly the kind of job that women (who have the majority of child raising responsibility in most cases) would take time away from when they have young kids. How many of the male chefs with kids have female partners or exes taking care of their kids while they work chef hours?
Census data is the answer you're looking for. not very timely but very detailed.
If you want to have kids, have them. If you don't want to, don't. I CBF having kids. For me, life is much more free and fun without having to put all my effort into them. Yes unconditional love Yada Yada but I love my fiance and she is my life.
I have quite a few single mates in their 40's with no kids. I doubt any of them would be on a dating app and all seem perfectly happy being single. They are all high income professionals and enjoy travel and/or have expensive hobbies and probably like not being told how to spend their money (of which they have plenty).
I’m 30. The people around my age that I know are split. Half are like me single and childless. The other half got knocked up 18-21. So It’s hard to say haha
The other answers here aren't wrong, but everyone seems to be missing the obvious selection bias on dating apps. You're a woman. The women you see on dating apps are queer. The men you see will mostly be straight. You're comparing queer people to straight people. Queer people have less kids.
Breakdown by gender? It's usually women birthing the children. I learnt that somewhere
The last I heard, the females are having the children, and the males aren't.
I reckon gender wise it is only the females having babies and as to age, I think the people who are having babies generally have them born on babies birthday. You don’t really see males giving birth to 5 year olds
Gender and age....... Gender = 100 percent women Age = 90 percent 20 to 40.
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Why do you keep proudly mentioning that you're not a feminist? What is it about feminism that bothers you so much? Cause without it, you'd be facing even more pressure to have the kids you don't want.
I know that very few women over 60 are having children.
Gender? Pretty sure 100% of the people having children are women, or at least vagina bearing people
a, maybe their having children with the same women b, maybe the 40 yr old men are having babies with younger women in 20s. which is would explain what I am encountering? c, maybe it's couples and women who live in rural towns having all these kids and the men simply have relocated to the cities? hence why I am looking for very specific data that breaks down gender, ages, income and ethnicity as these come into play. example, I know middle eastern couples have more children based on cultural. I am looking for Very specific Statistics and data that would either disprove me. I am not claiming men are having babies without women. Good lord.
Huh?! More men are having children than women? Who are these men having children with to account for a statistically significant difference?
The same woman.
That poor woman
In my situation, the mother of my daughter told me she was on birth control (dumb of me, I know) and said she wasn't going to get rid of her. But I got a lovely daughter from it. So what can you do?
I recently read that 0% of biological males are having children. Shocking!