Kids or no kids? Life goals in one's 20s predict midlife trajectories of well-being.

Abstract

For many people, parenthood constitutes a crucial part of a successful life. Yet, the number of adults who never have children is increasing and has prompted concerns about their well-being. Past research mostly focused on parents and rarely investigated factors that are theoretically meaningful for the well-being of adults without children. Our preregistered study uses a propensity-score matched design to investigate how life goals contribute to differences between adults with and without children in the development of eight well-being facets. Leveraging data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we constructed a matched sample comprising N = 562 individuals (average participation = 24.9 waves) who provided data from when they were young adults (ages 18-30) to an age when parenthood becomes less likely (age 40 for women, age 50 for men). We find almost no significant differences in the average midlife well-being trajectories of adults with and without children. Only in young adulthood, people without children reported better mental health, lower negative affect as well as lower positive affect, and more loneliness. Select evidence for a gender moderation suggests that fathers were less lonely than mothers as well as men and women without children. Prioritizing the goal to have children during early adulthood was related to lower midlife mental health, cognitive, and affective well-being in adults without children, but not in parents. Disengaging from the goal to have children was associated with positive changes in life satisfaction in adults without children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).