Michigan wants to grow its population, but more adults say no thanks to kids

• The percentage of non-parents who don’t want children doubled between 2002 and 2023
• Michigan is struggling with flat population growth, hobbling business expansion
• The Trump administration has considered a $5,000 ‘baby bonus’ to incentivize having children

Like many women growing up in Allendale, Kim Bode was raised with a set life plan: go to college, find a husband and have kids.

The west Michigan native recalls feeling like her sole purpose in life was to become a mother. “That's just what everybody did, you know? You just got married, and you had kids,” she said.

She spent her 20s focused on her education and starting her own communications company. By her 30s, she’d become adept at sweeping away questions about when she would have children.

Now, at age 46, she lives in Grand Rapids with her husband Josh Byler, a construction worker. They’re no strangers to buying diapers, but they’re not for their kids — they’re for Jax, a Jack Russell terrier who is blind and has to wear a diaper around the house, one of their eight rescue dogs pattering about the red, two-story home. 

“I don't hate children. It's not like I'm the witch in Hansel and Gretel,” said Bode. “It was never something I wanted. There are other priorities that I have in life, and I don't think that your worth should be defined by another human you've created.” 

The couple is among the growing number of childfree adults — people who don’t have or don’t want children. 

The percentage of non-parents who never want kids more than doubled in two decades, going from 14% in 2002 to 29% in 2023, according to a Michigan State University study that used data from the National Survey of Family Growth. The same research team found that 27% of adult Michiganders — an estimated 2 million Michigan adults — identify as childfree. 

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That’s a sobering statistic for Michigan, where a stagnant — and projected to soon be shrinking — population is a major factor in the state’s economic doldrums.

With nearly 47% of Michigan adults who have never had children, the state has continued to struggle with birth rates. In 2023, there were more deaths than live births in Michigan for the fourth consecutive year, and the fewest babies born since the 1940s.

The nation’s drooping fertility rate has become a policy issue in Washington, where the Trump administration is flirting with financial incentives to encourage births.

For Bode and Byler, incentives aren’t likely to change their minds about children.

“Sometimes we are kind of looked at differently, like, ‘Oh, your life must not be as full and fulfilled,’” Byler told Bridge Michigan. “There’s joy and fulfillment in other things …  We spend our time and money with dogs.”

The couple has developed a reputation for taking in rescue dogs, Bode added: “We have two blind ones, we have one that doesn't have any teeth. I mean, the list goes on and on, like, we just take in the ones nobody wants.” 

Jennifer Watling Neal, co-author of MSU’s study, said her research focuses on adults who have consciously chosen not to have children, not those who are “not yet parents” but may have children in the future, or childless individuals who want children but are prevented by social or biological factors.

“The choice to be childfree is becoming a little bit less stigmatized,” Neal said. “So some of the growth that we're seeing in the prevalence rates could just be people feeling more comfortable saying that they're childfree and saying, ‘No, I don't have kids and I really don't want them.’”

Census data backs up the MSU study’s findings. 

Nationally, an analysis of census data by The Washington Post shows a growing number of women ages 25 to 44 have never given birth — climbing from 28% in 2012 to nearly 35% in 2022. 

Those figures may grow, as younger generations worry about climate change, reproductive rights and the ability to afford a child.

According to a Pew Research Center survey of people under 50 unlikely to have children, over half responded they “just don’t want to” have children, and over a third said they don’t want to because they’re concerned with the state of the world or believe they can’t afford to raise a child. 

Adrienne Wallace, 48, is an associate professor of advertising and public relations at Grand Valley State University who’s made the choice to be childfree. She told Bridge she’s not surprised by the results of Neal’s study because she’s seen this trend in her classroom, with an increasing number of her students saying they’re not interested in having kids. 

“I work with a lot of young people, so I've been seeing this change over time to even college-aged students, not just after college,” Wallace said. “I think that how women especially are thinking about what their futures look like, and not to be cliche, but in this political economy, there's a lot of things to be wary about in relationship to being a mom or being pregnant.”

Because Wallace and her husband were both married before, they were hesitant to have kids and decided to reframe their definition of family to focus on community. 

“I've just chosen to invest my time and efforts in, literally, other people's children,” she said. “My students jokingly refer to me as their PR mom.” 

The Trump administration is considering a $5,000 “baby bonus” for new mothers to incentivize birth. A Department of Transportation directive will also prioritize funding for communities with high birth and marriage rates. A budget bill working its way through Congress and supported by Trump includes a one-time deposit of $1,000 into savings accounts for newborns.

Such policies haven’t worked elsewhere, said Jay Zigmont, the CEO and founder of Childfree Wealth, based in Tennessee but with clients around the country. 

“A financial choice of $5,000 versus the cost of a kid, (which on average costs families over $300,000 from birth to age 18), that’s just not a good financial choice,” he said. Countries like Japan and Hungary that offer baby incentives have seen birth rates continue to plummet. 

More adults are choosing to save money and go the childfree route, and have vastly different financial planning needs, said Zigmont, who created a planning firm solely for people without children. Unlike parents, childfree people don’t have a goal to pass money to the next generation, and often plan to “die with zero.” 

As the childfree demographic increases, more couples will have to plan for end-of-life care and how to write their will without a next of kin. “The hardest question for childfree folks is, who's going to make decisions for you as you get older?” Zigmont said. 

Wallace, the GVSU associate professor, is comfortable with that tradeoff.

“I think that it's disingenuous and dangerous for us to look at childbirth like a quota activity,” Wallace said. “You don't have to go too far to see that America is not like a very safe place for women to bear children.” 

Now, Wallace says she’s more steadfast in her decision than ever before.

“Who we love and who we decide to call family isn't just about who biologically belongs to us, but also who your community is full of,” Wallace said. “I've become even more rooted in my idea of, ‘I am enough.’ My definition of a woman does not start with her biological offspring.” 

In Grand Rapids, Bode and Byler have found that taking care of the dogs fills their time, in between Bode running her own business, Byler’s construction job and going on vacations like Virgin Voyages’ adults-only cruise. 

Rather than her children, Bode would like her legacy to focus on giving back to her local community and the issues that are important to her, such as creating a scholarship for LGBTQIA+ students at GVSU, and supporting women-owned small businesses. 

“You look at what your sphere of influence is, and then do what you can to make the world a better place,” Bode said. “I truly believe that.”