Three out of four "childfree" Australian adults don't regret life without kids: study

Three out of four Australian adults say they have no regrets about never having children, according to a study released Wednesday.

The study, an anonymous online survey, found 75 percent of 559 Australians over the age of 35, who were yet to procreate, were content despite not having fulfilled what many consider as a rite of passage.

"There is childless and childfree. People who are childfree choose not to have children ever," the study's led-researcher, Bronwyn Harman, from Perth's Edith Cowan University told the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) on Wednesday.

"People who are childless are the ones who would love to have children but are unable to for a variety of reasons."

Harman said the study indicated that with age "childless" or "childfree" people wished they had reared a child of their own.

"One of the major things I found was that of the participants who were over 50 and chose not to have children, approximately one quarter said they regretted that decision," Barman, a lecturer at School of Psychology and Social Science, said.

"That's not comparable to other research that has been done in that area. Other research said that only about two-three percent regret it."

For those who stuck by their decision to not procreate - or were unable to due to reproductive ailments - very few able offer a valid reason, Harman said.

"Some decided they weren't maternal or paternal, some said children were too expensive, some said they actively disliked children," she said.

"But the most common answer I got was that there was no reason - they just didn't think about having children or see it as an option for them."

Australia is one of the biggest pro-natal nations in the world, with past government's even offering prospective parents a 'baby bonus' - a cash incentive of four thousand U.S. dollars in total - for each child they spawned.

Last week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that the national birthrate per mother dropped 4.25 percent last year, from 1.88 children per mother in 2013 to 1.8 in 2014. Endit