Voters without kids are in the political spotlight – but they’re not all the same

In the 2024 election cycle, voters without children are under the microscope.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance has said that “childless cat ladies” and older adults without kids are “sociopaths” who “don’t have a direct stake in this country.”

So it was notable that when pop star Taylor Swift endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, she didn’t simply express her support and leave it at that. She also called herself a “childless cat lady.”

Politicians and others often use the word “childless” as an umbrella term for people who do not have children. But as social scientists who study people without children, we know that this doesn’t capture some important nuances.

Using large-scale demographic data, we’ve found that there are many types of nonparents – and each has its own set of political priorities.

The range of nonparents

Only about 3% of Americans are truly childless, or what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls “involuntarily childless.” Most Americans who do not have children are not childless. They are some other type of nonparent. Social scientists often distinguish several types of nonparents:

• Childless people want children but cannot have them due to circumstances such as infertility.

• Not yet parents are people who do not have children yet, but plan to in the future. They tend to be younger.

• Undecided individuals aren’t sure whether they want to have children.

• Child-free people have decided they do not want children now or in the future.

These distinctions matter. When nonparents are combined into a single group, they seem demographically and politically similar to everyone else.

But each type of nonparent is affected by political issues differently. And some issues are especially consequential for child-free people.

The ramifications of Dobbs

Take abortion rights. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson ended a constitutional right to an abortion. The ruling limited access to reproductive health care in several states and created uncertainty in others.

Some politicians have expressed concerns about the fallout of the Dobbs decision. They’ve pointed to the inability for some not-yet-parents to access reproductive care if complications arise during pregnancy. They’ve also raised the alarm that Dobbs will lead to limits on access to in vitro fertilization for childless couples.

But these concerns are relevant only for people who want to have children. There is usually little talk among politicians and pundits about the importance of reproductive rights for child-free people who do not want to have children.

The share of Michigan adults identifying as child-free rose from 21% before Dobbs to nearly 26% immediately afterward. This increase occurred during a time when there was significant confusion about access to abortion in Michigan because state laws were ambiguous and being challenged in the courts.

Since Dobbs, there has also been a dramatic increase in vasectomies and tubal ligations nationwide. Some of this increase is the result of child-free people now turning to surgery to avoid having children.

Child-free people are overlooked in other areas, too, such as tax policy and in the workplace.

Child-free people pay federal income taxes alongside parents. But both Republican and Democratic presidential platforms have placed a heavy emphasis on expanding the child tax credit, which directly benefits only people who have or will have children. Child-free people work alongside parents. But parental status isn’t a protected category, which could be why child-free people tend to work longer hours and have less leeway to take time off.

Will a new bloc emerge?

Nonetheless, child-free people are primed to play an important role in American politics for several reasons.

First, there are a lot of them.

How many Americans are child-free depends on how you ask them. Data from nationwide face-to-face interviews suggest that around 10% of Americans are child-free. But data from anonymous surveys in Michigan and nationwide peg it at closer to 20% to 25%. If that’s the case, it could mean as many as 50 million to 60 million Americans are child-free.

Second, their numbers are growing. A range of studies suggest that every year, more Americans are reporting that they simply never want to have children.

Third, politicians’ derogatory comments about “childless” people have gotten the attention of child-free people. And they’re starting to organize. For example, Shannon Coulter, the influential activist behind the nonprofit group GrabYourWallet, is bringing them together through the nonpartisan Alliance of Childfree Voters.

It’s too soon to know whether child-free people can be thought of as a distinct voting bloc. But in our research, we found that child-free people in the swing state of Michigan lean liberal. While there are similar numbers of liberal and conservative parents in the state, child-free people who identify as liberal outnumber conservatives 2 to 1.

Given their size, growth, organization and liberal leanings, it may be time for American politicians to think more carefully about how child-free people fit in.

Jennifer Watling Neal receives funding from the National Institutes of Health, Institute of Education Sciences, Templeton World Charity Foundation, and the Wallace Foundation.

Zachary P. Neal receives funding from the National Science Foundation.