Women With Advanced Degrees Are More Likely to Give Birth and Have Larger Families Than 20 Years Ago

Generally speaking, women with low levels of educational attainment tend to have larger numbers of children than women with a high-level of education. But data in a new study from the Pew Research Center shows that today women with advanced degrees are more likely to have children than was the case two decades ago.

Here are some key findings from the study:

• Today, about one-in-five women ages 40 to 44 with a master’s degree or higher (22 percent) have no children – down from 30 percent in 1994. The decline is particularly dramatic among women with an M.D. or Ph.D. – fully 35 percent were childless in 1994, while today the share stands at 20 percent.
• Among women with at least a master’s degree, 60 percent have had two or more children, up from 51 percent in 1994. The share with two children has risen 4 percentage points, while the share with three or more has risen 6 percentage points.
• For women without a high school diploma, 26 percent have four or more children. For women with a master’s degree or higher, only 8 percent have four or more children.

The study was led by Gretchen M. Livingston, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center. Previously, Dr. Livingston was a visiting research fellow at the Princeton University Office of Population Research. She holds a Ph.D. in demography and sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.