A new analysis suggests that some developing countries have unexpectedly large numbers of childfree people; that is, people who have not had children and do not want to in the future. Zachary Neal and Jennifer Neal of Michigan State University, U.S., present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on November 12, 2025.
Fertility rates are declining globally, bringing increased attention to childfree people. Research on childfree people in wealthy countries suggests that their prevalence is large and growing. However, few studies have focused on childfree people in the developing world.
To address this gap, the authors designed and employed new software for analyzing data from developing countries. The software is specifically tailored for data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program—a collaboration between the U.S. and local partners with the primary goal of collecting fertility data.
Using the new software, the researchers analyzed DHS data collected between 2014 and 2023 on more than 2 million (2,000,855) people—including 37,366 childfree people—in 51 developing countries. They found that the prevalence of childfree people varied substantially between countries, even within the same region.
For instance, among single women aged 15 to 29 in Southeast Asia, an estimated 7.3 percent in the Philippines were childfree, compared to 0.4 percent in Indonesia. Among the 51 countries, Papua New Guinea had the highest prevalence of childfree single women aged 15 to 29, at 15.6 percent, while Liberia had the lowest, at 0.3 percent.
Further analysis suggested a strong link between a country's prevalence of childfree people and its level of human development, which is related to health, education, and standard of living. Countries scoring lower on the Human Development Index, such as Chad, had childfree rates of about 1 percent, while higher human-development countries, such as Turkey, had higher rates around 6 percent. Gender equality and political freedom were also associated with childfree prevalence, albeit to a lesser extent.
These findings suggest that the choice to be childfree is not restricted to wealthy countries. This study and future research on the topic could help shed light on the reproductive health needs and other needs of childfree people in developing countries.
The authors add: "There has been increasing attention on the rising number of individuals in wealthy, highly developed countries who do not want children. However, this research demonstrates that the choice to be childfree is not restricted to the developed world, and that many individuals in developing countries are also choosing not to have children."
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Citation: Neal ZP, Neal JW (2025) Prevalence and predictors of childfree people in developing countries. PLoS One 20(11): e0333906. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0333906
Author countries: U.S.
Funding: ZPN and JWN received funding from the Michigan State University Asian Studies Center ( https://asia.isp.msu.edu/ ). The funder played no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, or preparation of the manuscript.
