Exploring the impact of climate change on the decision to have kids
Background
We wanted to explore how climate change impacted the decision-making of young adults contemplating whether or not to have kids. Market research indicates that a growing number of consumers, particularly teenagers and young adults, consider climate change a top-of-mind issue across the globe. Media reports in The Guardian and the New York Times show that young people are questioning their intentions to have children as a result.
Approach
We adopted a multi-study, mixed-methods approach to gain detailed qualitative insights into the experiences of young adults concerned about climate change navigating the decision to have kids. Desk-based research assisted in generating our interview guidelines and involved conducting content analysis of approximately 2,000 user-generated comments reflecting public discourse on the research topic. We then completed 24, 25 to 60-minute in-depth interviews where we discussed participants' understanding of climate change, how they envisioned the future, their motivations, and anticipated consequences of having children or not. Our participants were aged 18 to 35 and considered climate change to play an important role in their decision-making about having children. After transcribing the interviews, we used thematic analysis to identify the main themes discussed by participants.
Outcomes
Out of this research, we identified three main themes that underpinned young adults’ motivations for not having children in response to climate change. This included overconsumption, overpopulation, and an uncertain future.
Young adults are concerned about how having kids might contribute to overconsumption of resourcese and the emission of greenhouse gases. They perceived modern lifestyles as resource-intensive and wasteful and likely to contribute to resource shortages in the future, such as for food and water. Young adults therefore felt guilty because the act of raising children would further contribute to resource use and emissions, and they could not guarantee a good quality of life for their future children.
Young adults are concerned about overpopulation and consider having more than two children to be selfish as it goes beyond ‘replacing’ themselves and their partner. This was due to their concern about contributing to population growth in the high-income countries where they lived. They perceived richer countries to disproportionately contribute to climate change due to higher consumption levels, while poorer countries were more likely to experience greater negative effects of climate change.
Young adults were anxious about the uncertain future potential children would be living in. They expressed concern for the future and struggled with climate change anxiety, believing that if they did have children, their children would experience a world significantly worse than what they experienced in their own lifetime. This was due to not believing that the necessary changes would be made by governments and businesses to mitigate climate change.
Recommendations
We identified three key recommendations for policymakers and businesses wanting to support consumers in having children in the age of climate change:
Prioritising climate change mitigation in governmental agendas to alleviate public discontent. This can include more frequent and in-depth public discussion of climate change and proposed and existing mitigation strategies, inviting public contributions to new mitigation proposals, investing in climate mitigation research, and prioritising economic activity with climate mitigation potential.
Implementing public health policy to address climate anxiety and other related concerns. This can include increasing investment in mental healthcare services, providing climate-specific training for healthcare providers, and mitigating shortcomings in existing mental healthcare infrastructure.
Supporting consumers in adopting more sustainable lifestyles, including more sustainable ways to raise children. This can include addressing household consumption through sustainable food and clothing provisioning, climate-friendly housing, clean energy and energy-saving measures, sustainable transportation, and prioritising a sharing economy.
Want to learn more about this study? You can access our published paper in Population and Environment or contact me to chat about how you can utilise these insights in your marketing strategy or intervention.
