Childlessness

The proportion of childless women in a particular society depends on several factors. The share of those infertile for biological reasons can be estimated at 4-5%, while the proportion of people not having children either consciously or against their will (in the lack of an appropriate partnership, owing to the prolongation of child-bearing or as a consequence of some social customs) is also to be taken into account. Childlessness against one’’s will depends on social factors, and its rate can be extremely different. In Hungary, even during the population census held in 1960 more than 10% of 40-49 year-old married women, exiting from their fertile period of life, proved to be childless, while earlier on this share approximated 15%. Following this, however, the proportion of those without children decreased continuously, and according to the 2001 population census some 3% of 40-49 year-old married women (i.e. generations born in the 1950s) remained childless.1

The proportion of consciously childless is not high today either. The first wave in 2001 of the nationally representative follow-up panel survey ("Turning-points in our Life") made by HCSO’’s Demographic Research Institute showed that only 1.4% of women aged 45 or less and 2.4% of men aged 50 or less had considered childlessness ideal. At the same time 6% of women and 10% of men said that they did not wish to have children. Therefore a considerable difference was recorded between the number of children considered ideal and the number of planned children, which latter indicates the expected increase of conscious childlessness. Especially alarming in this respect is the planned childlessness of women and men of the corresponding age living in Budapest (12% and 15%, respectively).2

Partly due to the spread of conscious childlessness and partly as a consequence of the increasing child-bearing age (today Hungarian women bear their first child at the age of 28 on average) and the modification of child-bearing plans the proportion of people with none or one child goes up, reducing the share of those having two children. The two-child family model is on the way to break up according to the studies, which is largely due to the couples not being able to reach the targeted, planned number of children. According to the second wave of the "Turning-points in our Life" survey only 29% of people planning in 2001 to have a child within three years could realize their plans between 2002 and 2005. 3 Some one fifth of those planning to have children gave up their plan. The consequences of all these can be seen on the figure: about 60% of the members of the generation of women born in 1980 were childless at the age of 27, while 30% of those born in 1975 did not have children at the age of 32. For a substantial part of them there is not much time left to realize their child-bearing plans...

Source: Kapitány Balázs - Spéder Zsolt: Gyermekvállalás (Child-bearing). In Monostori J. - Őri P. - S. Molnár E. - Spéder Zs. (eds): Demográfiai portré 2009. HCSO’’s Demographic Research Institute, Budapest, 2009. p. 36.
www.demografia.hu/letoltes/kiadvanyok/portre/honlap_teljes.pdf
     (Hungarian)
Further interesting data on the demographic situation of Hungary are available in publications on the website of HCSO’’s Demographic Research Institutewww.demografia.hu (Hungarian), above all in the above-mentioned volume of Demográfiai Portré 2009, and on the pages of the periodical Demográfia and the "KorFa" demographic newsletter. Here you can also find information on the results of the "Turning-points in our Life" panel survey in the volumes of the "Műhelytanulmányok" series.