Avoir un autre enfant vs. s'arrêter à la taille de famille actuelle
Si vous agissez
Avoir un enfant de plus
14%
Si vous n’agissez pas
S'en tenir au nombre d'enfants actuel
37%
Pourcentage de personnes qui regrettent ensuite chaque choix. Les barres et le registre complet s’affichent ci-dessous.
Famille
Dernière révision 2026-05-13
Qualité des preuves 4.25/5
Score d’évaluation en huit dimensions selon la
grille de qualité
. Chaque dimension notée de 1 à 5.
D1 Vérification des sources
4/5
D2 Autorité et indépendance des sources
4/5
D3 Précision du taux de regret
3/5
D4 Comparabilité des sources
4/5
D5 Motif de Gilovich
5/5
D6 Qualité de la prose
5/5
D7 Complétude des réserves
5/5
D8 Qualité de l’échantillon
4/5
Moyenne4.25/5
Regret d'action
Avoir un enfant de plus
14%
~14% des parents disent qu'ils auraient souhaité avoir moins d'enfants (regret cumulatif de taille de famille, non un regret concernant un enfant supplémentaire spécifique)
Parents dans la recherche qualitative et d'enquête transnationale
rétrospective, pas de calendrier fixe
Regret d'inaction
S'en tenir au nombre d'enfants actuel
37%
~37% des adultes américains auraient souhaité avoir plus d'enfants qu'ils n'en ont actuellement (une mesure d'aspiration qui regroupe parents et personnes sans enfant, non un instrument direct de type « je regrette de m'être arrêté »)
Adultes américains (parents et non-parents combinés), représentatifs au niveau national
rétrospective, pas de calendrier fixe
% regrettent ce choix
Avoir un enfant de plusS'en tenir au nombre d'enfants actuel
14%37%
inaction dominates — L'inaction domine — la plupart regrettent de ne pas avoir agi.
Décisions associées
Décisions sémantiquement similaires — même terrain, compromis différents.
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.
Sources : action
Registre des sources
Chaque chiffre ci-dessous correspond à ce que la source a rapporté, avec la citation textuelle sur laquelle nous nous sommes appuyés et la méthode de calcul. Cliquez sur un lien pour vérifier directement.
1/2 sources vérifiées de manière indépendante, mot pour mot, par rapport à la source citée
[1]Institute for Family Studies / Lyman Stone — To Have Kids or Not: Which Decision Do Americans Regret More?
Vérifié
↗ 1 other entry
Source de référence
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
Extrait
“"Just 14% of people with children (10% of all adults) agreed with the statement [that they wish they had had fewer children]."
”
Données source de
2021-12-08
Consulté le
2026-06-30
Vérification
Extrait récupéré et confirmé de manière indépendante, mot pour mot, par rapport à la source citée lors de notre audit de vérification.
Calcul
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
Revue par les pairs
Qualitative analysis establishing parental regret as a legitimate, studied societal experience; the paper supplies no prevalence rate
Extrait
“[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.]
”
Données source de
2015-01-01
Consulté le
2026-05-13
Calcul
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.
Sources : inaction
Registre des sources
Chaque chiffre ci-dessous correspond à ce que la source a rapporté, avec la citation textuelle sur laquelle nous nous sommes appuyés et la méthode de calcul. Cliquez sur un lien pour vérifier directement.
2/2 sources vérifiées de manière indépendante, mot pour mot, par rapport à la source citée
[1]Institute for Family Studies / Lyman Stone — To Have Kids or Not: Which Decision Do Americans Regret More?
Vérifié
↗ 1 other entry
Source de référence
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
Extrait
“"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."
”
Données source de
2021-12-08
Consulté le
2026-06-30
Vérification
Extrait récupéré et confirmé de manière indépendante, mot pour mot, par rapport à la source citée lors de notre audit de vérification.
Calcul
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
Vérifié
↗ 1 other entry
Source de référence
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
Extrait
“"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."
”
Données source de
2023-06-28
Consulté le
2026-06-30
Vérification
Extrait récupéré et confirmé de manière indépendante, mot pour mot, par rapport à la source citée lors de notre audit de vérification.
Calcul
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.
Réserves
Cette entrée est distincte de l'entrée existante sur la taille de la famille, qui cadre la question comme « souhaiter en avoir moins vs plus, toutes tailles de famille confondues ». Cette entrée se concentre spécifiquement sur la décision marginale de s'arrêter vs avoir un enfant supplémentaire. Les deux entrées partagent certaines données sources mais posent des questions différentes ; les personnes confrontées à une décision spécifique de « un de plus ? » sont le public visé ici. Le taux de 0,14 du côté action est le chiffre IFS directement publié : 14% des parents auraient souhaité avoir moins d'enfants. Ce chiffre couvre les parents de toutes parités et capte le regret cumulatif de taille de famille plutôt qu'un regret spécifiquement lié à un ajout marginal — aucune enquête américaine n'isole le regret d'un enfant marginal, de sorte que le 14% publié est utilisé avec une étiquette de construct correspondante plutôt qu'avec un ajustement à la baisse non publié. Le 0,37 du côté inaction est le chiffre IFS directement publié de souhait d'en avoir plus ; il regroupe les parents qui veulent plus d'enfants (~24% des adultes) et les personnes sans enfant qui espèrent encore en avoir (~13%), de sorte qu'il s'agit d'une mesure d'aspiration, non d'un instrument direct de type « je regrette de m'être arrêté » — et une part substantielle (les personnes sans enfant) n'a jamais pris de décision d'arrêt. Une fraction significative des décisions d'arrêt est involontaire (limitations de fertilité, désaccord du partenaire, contraintes financières, santé), ce qui complique le cadrage action/inaction — les personnes qui voulaient plus mais ne pouvaient pas en avoir plus ne sont pas dans une inaction volontaire au même sens que celles qui ont choisi de s'arrêter. L'article de Donath (2015) est intégralement payant et son affirmation centrale est de nature qualitative-féministe plutôt que quantitative-épidémiologique ; il est inclus pour établir la base évaluée par les pairs du construct du côté action. Les deux sources IFS proviennent d'un think tank d'orientation pro-famille affichée, ce qui peut influencer le cadrage et l'accent ; les données sous-jacentes (GSS, SABES) sont publiquement disponibles et reproductibles de façon indépendante.
