PIP: According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 1975 approximately one in 11 women was childless by age 44 years. By 1993, that number had risen to about one in 6. Birth control is more reliable, people are marrying later, women are sometimes reluctant to abandon careers, marriages seem less stable, and the environment in which children are raised seems scarier. People who have children increasingly view it as a matter of choice. Some people know early in life that they do not want children, with first-born and only children tending to be more ambitious and independent, and also having a higher rate of childlessness. Other people agonize over whether or not to have children. While the drive to reproduce is part of human instinct, there is also social pressure to procreate, with the childless seen as having empty, unfulfilling lives. On the contrary, the childfree lifestyle is anything but empty. Children bring laughter and love to life, but also cause considerable fatigue, frustration, worry, and sometimes heartache. The childfree often score higher than parents on measures of mental health. Couples without children also tend to have happier marriages, with marital satisfaction declining after a baby is born. Non-parents also have more leisure time and money to spend on themselves.