New Study Proves We Should Stop Blaming Dogs for People Not Having Kids

We’ve all heard the complaints: young people are bringing home pets instead of having kids. Despite the fact that there is little actual evidence to support this claim, many people out there — from politicians to crotchety older relatives at the holiday dinner table — are quick to cast the blame for declining birth rates on companion animals. But a new study from Taiwan suggests that pets aren’t acting as replacements for kids; they’re actually more likely to be a precursor.

Taiwan has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, to the point where fertility has fallen below population replacement levels. There are many circumstances that could contribute to the general trend of falling birth rates, including the cost of living and shifting gender norms. But even with all of those other mitigating factors, many people still blame pets.

Researchers at the National Taiwan University sought to interrogate that claim by examining pet registry records and tax files that covered ten years and 23 million individuals.

“There was this joke that if you go to the biggest park in Taipei City and you see a stroller coming by, the chance that inside the stroller is a pet, either a dog or cat, the probability of that is much higher than there’s an actual kid in it,” Ming-Jen Lin, one of the authors of the study, told The New York Times. 

By analyzing all this data, the researchers determined that having dogs was not, in fact, a replacement for having kids. Instead, many couples adopted dogs before they had kids. Pet parents were actually way more likely to become parents to humans than people who had no animal companions. It should be noted, however, that this correlation was only true for dog parents; cat parents were found to be less likely to have children.

The researchers believe that people who are considering having children often want to try adopting a dog first to see if they can handle the responsibility. Caring for dogs generally requires more structure and involvement than caring for a cat, the researchers point out in the paper, which more closely mimics childrearing. 

The study also revealed another interesting finding: While adopting a dog is associated with an increased likelihood of having a child, having a child seems to reduce the likelihood of adopting a dog. 

The research is specific to Taiwan, but it provides key evidence that declining birthrates are not to blame on pet parents. So if you’re stuck at an upcoming holiday dinner with a relative who waxes on and on about how young people are adopting dogs instead of having kids, you can pull out this study to give them the cold hard facts. There are certainly a lot of reasons why people choose not to have kids, but dogs are innocent in this debate. In fact, they may be helping to pave the way.