Willingness to Consider IVF Fell From 44% to 18%
Match and Kinsey's 2026 singles survey finds openness to IVF down from 44% to 18%, with egg freezing and adoption falling too. Only 38% of singles ages 18 to 49 said they want children, including 32% of women. Marriage interest rose over the same era.
At a lot of dinner tables, the late calendar still has a polite fix. Freeze the eggs. Book the consult. Keep the door open for grandchildren.
A new cut of the Singles in America survey says many singles are not holding that door.
In September 2026, the Kinsey Institute released findings from the 15th annual study, funded by Match. About 5,000 U.S. singles answered online in March and April. They were 18 and older, and not married, living with a partner, or in a committed relationship.
Willingness to consider fertility treatments such as IVF fell from 44 percent in 2017 to 18 percent in 2026. Egg freezing fell from 33 percent to 17 percent. Adoption fell from 53 percent to 27 percent.
These are people still outside a clinic, saying whether they would even consider walking in. That is a thinner claim than how many patients start a cycle. It still changes the family argument.
The destination looks thinner too. Among singles ages 18 to 49, only 38 percent said they want children. Men were at 42 percent. Women were at 32 percent.
Over a longer stretch, interest in marriage moved the other way. The share who said they would like to marry someday rose from 33 percent in 2010 to 45 percent in 2026. More people want a committed future. Fewer will name kids, or the medical and legal paths that make a late start possible.
Relatives often sell IVF and freezing as the modern bridge to a later baby. In this survey, most singles under 50 do not say they want kids, and far fewer will even consider the bridge than a decade ago. Name the real decision before anyone books a consult for you.
A hard economy bought interest in a partner, not a baby
Half of respondents named financial stability as a top factor in deciding to become a parent. About four in ten said money had already pushed their parenting timeline later. About a third pointed to the state of the world.
The same release makes the money mood plain. Fifty-four percent put economy or finances among their top daily stressors. Fifty-six percent put more money among the things that would make them happier.
Fifty-two percent said a difficult economy made them more interested in finding someone to share life with, nearly double the 27 percent who said so in 2013.
Hard times pushed people toward a partner. They did not push the same crowd toward a child, or toward the clinic bill that would make a child more reachable later.
If your relatives hear "not yet" as "never," ask which brake they mean. Partner. Rent. Or a retrieval they are not offering to fund.
One family can run both numbers at once
Ada Dieke, then at the CDC, looked at assisted-reproduction procedures in 2014. Asian and Pacific Islander women had about 5,883 procedures per million women of reproductive age. White women had about 2,888.
Those counts belong to people already in clinics. The Singles in America question belongs to people still single, asked what they would consider. Different rooms. Same Thanksgiving table.
In a diaspora household, both can be true. A cousin who can afford IVF keeps the waiting room full. A younger single in the same family says she does not want kids, or will not consider the path that would stretch a late start.
The pressure often lands harder on women, and the survey's gender gap sits right there. Among singles under 50, 32 percent of women said they want children, against 42 percent of men. The dinner lecture still tends to aim at the person less likely, in this sample, to want the outcome.
We have already written the other half of the marketing story: most people who freeze eggs never thaw them. This finding is about the front door. Fewer singles say they will walk through it.
Separate the questions before the holiday merges them
Try three lines on paper before anyone merges them into one speech.
Do I want a child. Do I want a partner first. Would I consider IVF, freezing, or adoption if those answers stay hard.
"I am open to kids with the right person and a budget" is not the same sentence as "book me a retrieval." "I do not want children" is not the same sentence as "I am scared of the cost."
If someone treats a clinic consult as proof you are serious about family, borrow the survey's own timeline. Openness to the treatments fell hard. Interest in marrying someday rose. People can want a committed future and still refuse months of injections and a bill that looks like a car.
A retrieval is a medical decision, not a character test. Get your own answer on paper before the consult becomes someone else's homework.