Noch ein Kind haben vs. bei der aktuellen Familiengröße bleiben
Wenn du handelst
Ein weiteres Kind bekommen
14%
Wenn du nicht handelst
Bei der aktuellen Familiengröße bleiben
37%
Anteil derer, die jede Entscheidung später bereuen. Balken und vollständige Datengrundlage erscheinen unten.
Familie
Zuletzt überprüft 2026-05-13
Evidenzqualität 4.25/5
Bewertungsergebnis nach acht Dimensionen gemäß der
Qualitätsrubrik
. Jede Dimension wird mit 1–5 bewertet.
D1 Quellenüberprüfung
4/5
D2 Quellenautorität & Unabhängigkeit
4/5
D3 Genauigkeit der Bedauernsrate
3/5
D4 Vergleichbarkeit der Quellen
4/5
D5 Gilovich-Muster
5/5
D6 Prosaqualität
5/5
D7 Vollständigkeit der Einschränkungen
5/5
D8 Stichprobenqualität
4/5
Durchschnitt4.25/5
Reue fürs Handeln
Ein weiteres Kind bekommen
14%
~14% der Eltern sagen, sie wünschten, sie hätten weniger Kinder gehabt (kumulatives Bedauern über die Familiengröße, kein Bedauern über ein bestimmtes zusätzliches Kind)
Eltern in qualitativer und länderübergreifender Umfrageforschung
retrospektiv, kein fester Zeitraum
Reue fürs Unterlassen
Bei der aktuellen Familiengröße bleiben
37%
~37% der US-Erwachsenen wünschten, sie hätten mehr Kinder, als sie derzeit haben (ein Wunschmaß, das Eltern und Kinderlose bündelt, kein direktes 'ich bedauere, aufgehört zu haben'-Instrument)
US-Erwachsene (Eltern und Nicht-Eltern kombiniert), national repräsentativ
retrospektiv, kein fester Zeitraum
% bereuen diese Entscheidung
Ein weiteres Kind bekommenBei der aktuellen Familiengröße bleiben
14%37%
inaction dominates — Nichthandeln dominiert — die meisten bereuen, nicht gehandelt zu haben.
Verwandte Entscheidungen
Semantisch ähnliche Entscheidungen — gleiches Terrain, andere Abwägungen.
The Institute for Family Studies surveyed 1,518 US adults in 2021 and found a persistent asymmetry in how people feel about their family size decisions. The single largest group — 37% of all adults, whether currently parents or not — wish they had more children than they currently have, while 14% of parents wish they had fewer. The two figures are not symmetric instruments: the 37% is a wish-for-more aspiration that bundles parents who want another child (~24% of adults) with never-parents who still hope to start (~13%), and the 14% is cumulative family-size regret across all parities rather than regret about one specific additional child. No US survey isolates regret about a single marginal child, so the action side uses the published 14% with that broader-construct caveat made explicit. The qualitative literature on parental regret (Donath 2015, Signs) establishes the phenomenon as real and studied but supplies no prevalence rate. The desire-for-more gap reported by IFS is structural: Americans’ stated ideal family size has risen to a 50-year high while actual birth rates have fallen, meaning the aspiration-actuality divergence is widening, not narrowing.
The Gilovich and Medvec inaction-dominance model predicts that long-run regrets accumulate more on the side of things left undone than things done. The fertility evidence fits this prediction. Parents who had one more child and feel stretched rarely express the kind of persistent, escalating regret that would exceed the regret of those who stopped and later wished they had not. The IFS data show that the “wish for fewer” group among parents (14%) is well under half the size of the “wish for more” group (37% of all adults; ~24% among current parents alone), consistent with inaction-dominance. Across the population, the wish-for-more group substantially outnumbers the wish-for-fewer group, a separate signal that under-reproduction is more commonly regretted than over-reproduction.
Several limitations qualify the comparison. The action-side 14% is the published IFS figure for parents who wish they had had fewer children, but it measures cumulative family-size regret across all parities, not regret about one specific additional child — no US survey isolates the marginal-child construct, so the rate is broader than the entry’s strict “one more?” framing. The inaction-side 37% is the published wish-for-more figure, but it bundles never-parents who never made a stopping decision, so it overstates retrospective regret about voluntarily stopping. A significant share of “stopping” decisions are involuntary — fertility decline, partner disagreement, financial constraints — meaning that many people counted in the inaction side did not face a clean choice to have another child and declined; conflating structural barriers with decisional inaction can inflate the inaction-regret estimate. The IFS sources are from a think tank with a stated pro-family orientation, though the underlying survey data (US Adult Sexual Behaviors and Attitudes Study) is publicly available. Both sides of this entry measure wish-for-more or wish-for-fewer as a current preference, not a retrospective decision-regret with a validated instrument; the gap is directionally robust but should not be read as a precisely calibrated effect size.
Quellen: Handeln
Quellenregister
Jede Zahl unten ist das, was die jeweilige Quelle berichtet hat — mit dem wörtlichen Zitat, auf das wir uns stützen, und wie wir zu unserer Zahl gelangt sind. Klicke auf einen Link, um direkt zu prüfen.
1/2 Quellen unabhängig wortwörtlich mit der zitierten Quelle abgeglichen
[1]Institute for Family Studies / Lyman Stone — To Have Kids or Not: Which Decision Do Americans Regret More?
Verifiziert
↗ 1 other entry
Referenzquelle
14% of people with children agreed 'I wish I had had fewer children' (equal to 10% of all adults); this is cumulative family-size regret across all parities, not regret about one specific additional child
Auszug
“"Just 14% of people with children (10% of all adults) agreed with the statement [that they wish they had had fewer children]."
”
Quelldaten von
2021-12-08
Abgerufen
2026-06-30
Verifizierung
Der Auszug wurde bei unserer Grounding-Prüfung unabhängig erneut abgerufen und Wort für Wort mit der zitierten Quelle abgeglichen.
Berechnung
Institute for Family Studies analysis of the US Adult Sexual Behaviors and Attitudes Study (wave 2, March 2021, n=1,518 US adults, nationally representative). The action-side regret rate for this entry (0.14) is the directly published figure: 14% of people with children agreed "I wish I had had fewer children." This is the broadest available measure of parental child-regret in the US, and the regret_display labels it honestly as cumulative family-size regret — it captures parents who wish any child had not been born, spanning parents at all parities, and is NOT restricted to regret about a marginal one-more addition. No published US survey isolates regret about having one additional child beyond the current family size, so the entry uses the published 14% with a matching construct label rather than fabricating a smaller marginal-child number. (A prior version of this entry used an unpublished 8% downward adjustment fused with a qualitative paper to fit the "one more?" framing; that adjustment was not in any source and has been removed.) D3 score: 3 (real nationally representative survey, directly published figure; construct is family-size regret, broader than the entry's strict marginal-child framing — labeled as such).
[2]Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society — Regretting Motherhood: A Sociopolitical Analysis
Peer-Review
Qualitative analysis establishing parental regret as a legitimate, studied societal experience; the paper supplies no prevalence rate
Auszug
“[Paraphrase from published abstract — full text paywalled. Donath (2015) argues that regretting motherhood is a legitimate societal experience that challenges the assumption all mothers love motherhood. The paper draws on qualitative interviews with Israeli mothers who regret having children and situates regret within feminist and sociological theory. The paper does not report a single national prevalence figure but provides a conceptual framework used in subsequent quantitative work.]
”
Quelldaten von
2015-01-01
Abgerufen
2026-05-13
Berechnung
Donath, O. (2015). Regretting Motherhood: A Sociopolitical Analysis. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 40(2), 343-367. https://doi.org/10.1086/678145. This is a landmark qualitative-feminist paper that opened systematic inquiry into parental regret; it supplies no prevalence rate. Included as peer-reviewed methodological support for the action side, confirming that parental regret is a real, studied phenomenon. The quantitative rate (0.14) comes entirely from the IFS/Stone survey analysis above; Donath is not used to derive any number.
Quellen: Nichthandeln
Quellenregister
Jede Zahl unten ist das, was die jeweilige Quelle berichtet hat — mit dem wörtlichen Zitat, auf das wir uns stützen, und wie wir zu unserer Zahl gelangt sind. Klicke auf einen Link, um direkt zu prüfen.
2/2 Quellen unabhängig wortwörtlich mit der zitierten Quelle abgeglichen
[1]Institute for Family Studies / Lyman Stone — To Have Kids or Not: Which Decision Do Americans Regret More?
Verifiziert
↗ 1 other entry
Referenzquelle
37% of US adults — the single largest group — wish they had more children than they currently have, whether currently parents or not; 24% already have children but still want more and 13% have no children but still hope to
Auszug
“"A third (34%) have children and are happy with the number they have and another third—the largest group—wish they had more (37%), whether currently parents or not."
”
Quelldaten von
2021-12-08
Abgerufen
2026-06-30
Verifizierung
Der Auszug wurde bei unserer Grounding-Prüfung unabhängig erneut abgerufen und Wort für Wort mit der zitierten Quelle abgeglichen.
Berechnung
Institute for Family Studies analysis of the US Adult Sexual Behaviors and Attitudes Study (wave 2, March 2021, n=1,518 US adults, nationally representative). The verbatim excerpt identifies the satisfied group as 34% and the wish-for-more group as 37% ("whether currently parents or not"). The inaction-side rate for this entry is the directly published 0.37 wish-for-more figure, NOT the 0.34 that labels the satisfied-with-current-count group (a prior version of this entry mistakenly borrowed the 34% number, an inversion that has been corrected). The 37% is composed of ~24% who already have children and still want more and ~13% who have no children but still hope to — so it bundles parents and never-parents. The regret_display labels this honestly as an aspiration measure that is NOT a retrospective "I regret stopping" instrument: it captures a current wish-for-more preference, and a substantial share of the group (the ~13% never-parents) never made any stopping decision at all. D3 score: 3 (real nationally representative survey, directly published figure; construct is wish-for-more aspiration, broader than and not identical to regret about voluntarily stopping — labeled as such).
[2]Institute for Family Studies — Americans' Desire for Large Families Hits 50-Year High
Verifiziert
↗ 1 other entry
Referenzquelle
45% of Americans now see three or more children as the ideal family size — the highest share since the late 1960s — up from 38% in 2013, widening the gap between desired and actual fertility
Auszug
“"Today, 45% of Americans see three or more children as ideal, a steep increase from 38% in 2013 and from 33% in 2003. Not since the sweeping social changes of the late 1960s have more Americans considered a larger family of three or more children ideal."
”
Quelldaten von
2023-06-28
Abgerufen
2026-06-30
Verifizierung
Der Auszug wurde bei unserer Grounding-Prüfung unabhängig erneut abgerufen und Wort für Wort mit der zitierten Quelle abgeglichen.
Berechnung
IFS analysis of Gallup Social Series data on ideal family size. Confirms that the aspiration-actuality gap is widening over time, supporting the wish-for-more direction as durable rather than a one-survey artifact. Included as corroborating trend evidence; the primary inaction-side rate (0.37) is drawn from the Stone (2021) SABES survey above.
Einschränkungen
This entry is distinct from the existing family-size entry, which frames the question as "wishing for fewer vs more across all family sizes." This entry focuses specifically on the marginal decision of stopping vs having one additional child. The two entries share some source data but ask different questions; users facing a specific "one more?" decision are the intended audience here. The action-side 0.14 rate is the directly published IFS figure: 14% of parents wish they had had fewer children. That figure spans parents at all parities and captures cumulative family-size regret rather than regret specifically about one marginal addition — no US survey isolates marginal-child regret, so the published 14% is used with a matching construct label rather than an unpublished downward adjustment. The inaction-side 0.37 is the directly published IFS wish-for-more figure; it bundles parents who want more children (~24% of adults) and never-parents who still hope to have children (~13%), so it is an aspiration measure, not a direct "I regret stopping" instrument — and a substantial slice of it (the never-parents) never made any stopping decision. A meaningful fraction of stopping decisions are involuntary (fertility limitations, partner disagreement, financial constraints, health), which complicates the action/inaction framing — people who wanted more but could not have more are not making a voluntary inaction in the same sense as people who chose to stop. The Donath (2015) paper is full-text paywalled and its central claim is qualitative-feminist rather than quantitative-epidemiological; it is included to establish the peer- reviewed basis for the action-side construct. Both IFS sources are from a think tank with a stated pro-family orientation, which may influence framing and emphasis; the underlying data (GSS, SABES) are publicly available and independently reproducible.
