A study from the London School of Economics has found for every 15 IQ points above the statistical mean, a woman’s desire to bear children drops a whopping 25 percent. Seeing a little tyke sitting at the breakfast table and throwing cereal into a mother’s sleep-deprived hair makes that kind of logic hard to argue against.
Satoshi Kanazawa led the research team. He and his compatriots took the UK’s National Child Development study and used a fine-toothed comb, searching for correlations between intelligence and the desire to have children. Of course, other factors such as a woman’s level of education and socioeconomic status come into play. However, even with those and similar data points factored into the equation, Kanazawa confidently asserted to London’s Daily Mail that increased intelligence in women directly correlates to lower maternity rates.
To further prop up Kanazawa’s findings, a team working parallel at the University of York found having children and the number thereof has no direct correlation to a woman’s overall happiness. The long-held picture of life made richer and more vibrant by the addition of children is, scientifically speaking, false.
Dr. Nattavudh Powdthavee, who led the York team, found British parents report happiness equal to their childless counterparts. Parents across the Atlantic in the United States actually reported being less happy than childless friends.
While this may sound damning, the reason is remarkably simple. In today’s complex world of play dates and carseats and the latest video gaming systems, parents are too slogged in the everyday minutiae of parenting to enjoy life’s small moments. Who has time to marvel at a child’s unfaltering smile when kids need to be picked up from football practice?
Given the hectic, go-go-go nature of parenting today, it seems inevitable that smarter women would avoid having children.
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