Women without children on rise

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

It's almost offensive to ask a successful career woman why she never had children.

Sometimes it's a painful question that touches on fertility issues, dashed hopes and dreams not yet achieved.

Childless women in America represent a demographic that has doubled in the past 20 years. One in five women between age 40 and 44 has no children.

Whether women are deliberately delaying childbearing or just running out of time, childlessness is becoming less of a private sorrow and more of a way of life.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett's new book, "Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children" (Talk Miramax Books, $22), suggests that while women have broken through barriers in the professional world, they are left with bitterness and regret in their personal lives when they wait too late to have children.