“There's Too Much Uncertainty:” Young People’s Reluctance to Have Children in an Uncertain World

• In Event: Futures in Flux: How Young People Navigate an Uncertain World

Abstract

Considerations of family life are often part of young people’s perceptions of their future. But how do young people make sense of future family formation while navigating intense uncertainty? In this paper, we draw on in-depth interviews with 111 young adults aged 18 to 34 from Arizona, a context of significant political, economic, and social uncertainty and change, to explore how young people frame political, economic, and social uncertainty as part of their considerations of having children, now or in the future. Our preliminary findings suggest young people are deeply concerned about the future, not only for themselves but for the future generation that many of them are reluctant to bring into the world. In particular, the ways that uncertainty and precarity shape views about having children comes out in young people’s accounts about climate change, abortion and reproductive autonomy, the economy, and gun violence.

Authors

• Cassandra Cotton, Arizona State University

• Bailee Blankemeier, Arizona State University-Tempe

• Nilda Flores-Gonzalez, Arizona State University-Tempe