Parents Have Smaller Support Networks but More Close-Knit Relationships Than Childfree and Other Non-Parent Adults

Declining fertility rates and growing numbers of adults forgoing parenthood highlight the need to understand how social integration differs across reproductive status groups. Yet most research treats non-parents as a homogeneous group, overlooking differences among the childfree, childless, undecided, ambivalent and not-yet-parents. Using an egocentric network approach, we examined structural and quality-related characteristics of support networks across six reproductive status groups ( N = 797; aged 18–86 years; 62% based in the United Kingdom/United States). Parents had smaller support networks but more close-knit relationships, suggesting a quality-quantity trade-off. Childfree adults showed relatively stable network sizes across age, while not-yet-parents and undecided participants’ networks more closely resembled parents. Age-related patterns hint at midlife as a dynamic period of network change. Our findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between non-parent groups, with implications for social ageing, wellbeing and support interventions, while discrepancies with prior studies raise questions about possible methodological artefacts in network elicitation.