The Future of the City Is Childless: America’s Urban Rebirth is Missing Something Key—Actual Births.

It’s no wonder that fewer professional urban women are having children. Research shows that women take a huge financial risk when they have children. Their earring power often plummets. They typically have a hard time re-entering the workforce if they take off time to raise the family. All the while their husband’s earning power potentially continues to grow. This growth creates financial inequality that comes back to haunt women if their marriages end in divorce. Statistically, divorced women are significantly worse off financially than their husbands. (See stats in my earlier post of today in response to gray divorces, I.e., divorce over 50.) While we like to believe that the legal system confers justice, financial outcomes show this is simply not the case. Women most often end up in the losing end. Women cannot afford to set themselves up for such financial loss by lowering their work earning power, no matter how much they might otherwise like to have a family.

Derek Thompson
Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he writes about economics, technology, and the media. He is the author of Hit Makers and the host of the podcast Crazy/Genius.