British magazine, Grazia, surveyed 2,000 women and found that many of them would prefer a successful career, or owning a home, to having a child.  About half of women surveyed who did not have children said they would rather “get on the property ladder” than have a baby.  Over a quarter said they would prefer earning a salary of 100,000 GBP (156,660 USD) to having a child.  Half believed that having a baby would make them poorer, and more than half said they couldn’t afford a baby even if they wanted one.

It seems that more and more women want to focus on building their careers instead of raising children.  The survey found that over a quarter of women without children feared having a baby would negatively effect their careers, and 4 in 10 said they were not ready to give up their lifestyle.  In fact, 1 in 3 said they don’t plan to ever have children.

One factor appears to be that women do not want to become working mothers.  44% of women without children said that they felt sorry for working mothers struggling to “have it all,” and a quarter said they think working mothers always look exhausted.  1 in 5 said that balancing a career and motherhood looks so difficult it makes them think twice about having children.

Grazia Editor-in-Chief Jane Bruton said, “It’s clear from our survey ‘having a baby’ has just dropped off the to-do list for a whole generation of twenty- somethings.  Yet with women bearing the brunt of the recession and headlines about rising costs of childcare forcing working mothers out of their jobs, is it any wonder these women are questioning whether motherhood is really worth it?”