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Report: More U.S. women childless

WASHINGTON, June 25 (UPI) -- The percentage of childless women in the United States has nearly doubled since 1976, a study based on Census data indicates.

The Pew Research Center said nearly 20 percent of older women have never had children. In 1976, that was true of about 10 percent.

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The Census figures show that in 1976 there were 580,000 women aged 40 to 44 who were childless, or 10 percent of the group, which had increased to 1.9 million or 18 percent in 2008.

The trend cuts across lines of race, ethnicity and income, Pew said. But there is one exception, the 9 percent of women with advanced academic or professional degrees.

In 1994, 31 percent of that group did not have children while in 2008 24 percent were childless. Researchers say that may be because women with advanced degrees are better able to afford techniques like in vitro fertilization, allowing them to extend their child-bearing years.

White women are more likely to be childless than black and Hispanic women. But the rate of childlessness is growing faster for blacks and Hispanics.

In one sign of changing customs, never-married women are more likely to have children than they were in the 1970s while those still in their first marriage are less likely.

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