According to a new Pew report based on the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, nearly one-in-five American women between forty and forty-forty has no children. About half of these women are unable to have children while half are childless by choice. Pew suggests that decreasing social pressures to have children along a trend toward delaying marriage could contribute to the increase.

Women with post-college degrees are the most likely to be childless, but they are becoming more likely to have children even as the rest of the nation becomes less likely to do so. The USA Today suggests that this could be because educated women have more access to expensive fertility treatments that extend their child-bearing years.