“This study is different because we identify childfree people by actually asking them if they ever want to have children, and we include men and women of all ages.â€.
Specifically, they looked at responses collected from a representative sample of 1,000 adults polled in May 2020, which included questions about having biological or adopted children as well as their personality traits and attitudes toward child-free people in general.
And after controlling for demographic factors like age, education status, and gender, the team “also found that these childfree people are just as satisfied with their lives as parents, childless people, or people who plan to have kids,†Jennifer Neal said.
And when accounting for other factors, there were no big distinctions in common personality traits, though people who aspired to become parents, but weren’t yet, may have been slightly more agreeable than child-free people.
In the survey, childfree individuals were noticeably warmer in their attitude toward child-free men and women as a group, while parents and not-yet parents were noticeably colder toward them, both trends holding steady after accounting for other factors.