The making of a zombie statistic: Do 44% of Americans not want kids?
I saw something I didn’t quite believe in a news story shared on my Facebook feed (chunky blue numbering is mine):
Sounds awfully high. Okay, I click on the red link and here’s what comes up- another Today story with this line:
Okay, this is a little different. Apparently we’re not talking about all Americans, just adults aged 18 to 49. Click on the Pew Research Center study that’s cited and…. something even more different comes up.
So what we’re really talking about is 44% of NON-PARENTS in the study. People who DO NOT have a child yet. Meaning, 44% of Americans aged 18–49 in this survey who don’t have a kid yet don’t foresee that status changing.
This is not remotely close to “44% of Americans”.
Look at the methods for the report for the real details- we’re talking about a sample of 2,249 parents and 1,617 non-parents, all American, aged 18–49 and recruited by a random phone survey (so they…
