There are several main categories of dual-income couples with no kids, including new couples, empty nesters, gay married couples, and other childless couples.
Childless couples who live together forever until their dying days are undoubtedly family, just as much as couples who have large families are.
Voluntary childlessness, also called being childfree, describes the voluntary choice not to have children. In most societies and for most of human history, choosing not to have children was both difficult and undesirable (except for celibate individuals).
Barren • archaic (of a woman) infertile. synonyms: infertile, sterile, childless; technicalinfecund "a barren woman" antonyms: fertile. •
Just the two of us: 1 in 4 couples opt to never have kids — and are just as happy. EAST LANSING, Mich. — Parenthood is typically the next step in a relationship after making a commitment to that special someone.
Childfree is the term used generally for those who have chosen not to have kids while Childless is for those who would love them but can't have them.
Childless Family
These unique families include working couples who may have pets or enjoy taking on other people's kids (like nieces and nephews) for the day occasionally rather than having their own. They could also be adventurous couples who don't feel like kids would be a good fit for their lifestyle.
A Beanpole family is a multi-generational family that is long and thin with few aunts, uncles and grandparents. This is a result of extended life expectancy and fewer children being born.
Anuclear family is the most common type of family in the western world, with the term gaining traction in the United States of America over the 20th century.
But that might have been the problem; childfree couples divorce more often than couples who have at least one child, according to researchers, despite numerous studies that indicate marital happiness plummets in the first year or two after the birth of a child and sometimes never quite recoups.
Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council of Great Britain, researchers found that childless couples have happier marriages. They feel more satisfied and valued, and intentionally do fun, caring and comforting things every day for each other.
Childless couples tend to develop "strong social relationships such as with friends and family, including nieces and nephews," she says. And maintaining strong social connections "is important for aging across the board," she notes.
About two-in-ten (19%) say it's due to medical reasons, 17% say it's for financial reasons and 15% say it's because they do not have a partner. Roughly one-in-ten say their age or their partner's age (10%) or the state of the world (9%) is a reason they don't plan to have kids.
Studies show that some people regret being childless when they get older, but they're in the minority. An Australian researcher found that a quarter of child-free women came to regret the decision once they were past child-bearing age and began contemplating old age alone.
In conclusion, while there are certainly many benefits to having children, there are also many advantages to being a childfree couple. Increased freedom, financial stability, and a reduced impact on the environment are just a few of the benefits that couples can experience when choosing to remain childfree.
The major disadvantages are lack of companionship/being alone/loneliness, lack of support and care when older, and missing the experience of parenthood.
Cons to Living a Childfree Lifestyle
Friendships. When you don't have children and most of the people that you are around do, there is a strain in conversations. Your interests and focus are not the same. You can't really relate to many of the issues that they are always talking about.
Gambia and Senegal have the world's biggest households, with an average person living with a dozen or more family members, but living arrangements also are fairly expansive in larger countries, such as Pakistan, where the average individual experiences a household size of 8.5, Nigeria (7.7), and India (5.8).
First, there's evidence indicating that the nuclear family is, in fact, recovering. Second, a nuclear family headed by two loving married parents remains the most stable and safest environment for raising children.