More University Educated Women Choosing Motherhood, Pew Study Finds

Women with higher education are having more children today than they did before, a new study claims.

Published by the Pew Research Center, the study claims that 22 percent of women aged 40 to 44 with master's degree or higher have no children today compared to 30 percent of the women two decades ago. Childlessness among women in this age group is at its lowest in the decade, the study notes. The greatest decline in childlessness was observed among women with doctoral degrees.

"The decline is particularly dramatic among women with an M.D. or Ph.D. - fully 35% were childless in 1994, while today the share stands at 20%. Not only are highly educated women more likely to have children these days, they are also having bigger families than in the past. Among women with at least a master's degree, six-in-ten have had two or more children, up from 51% in 1994," the study notes.

The research also established that American families are smaller than they were in 1970s and that more education a woman has up to bachelor's degree, less likely she is to become a mother.

While family sizes became smaller across all demographic divides, the study showed that blacks and Hispanic mothers were twice as likely to have four or more children compared to whites and Asian women.