About 8% of parents report regretting having children, a figure that holds remarkably steady across surveys in the UK (YouGov), Poland (Koenig et al.), and the United States (IFS). The number rises among younger parents (up to 14% in the 18-40 cohort) and falls among older ones, suggesting that some early-parenthood regret fades with time. On the other side, a Michigan State population study found that adults who reached their 70s without children reported no more life regret than parents — and in fact, parents were slightly more likely to say they would change something about their lives.
The cultural narrative overwhelmingly frames childlessness as something people will regret “when it’s too late.” The data does not support this. Pew’s 2024 survey found that only 38% of childless adults over 50 even report having once wanted children, and the MSU longitudinal data shows that this aspiration gap does not translate into elevated regret in old age. The asymmetry in public discourse (intense focus on childless regret, near-silence on parental regret) is itself a perception gap worth noting.
The caveat that matters most is voluntariness. Involuntarily childless adults — those who wanted children but could not have them due to fertility, circumstance, or timing — likely experience higher regret than the voluntarily childless. Most surveys combine both groups, which obscures the difference. Similarly, the parent-regret figure almost certainly underreports due to social desirability: saying you regret your children remains one of the strongest taboos in survey research.