Parents often complain about how hard it is to balance the cost of child-rearing with saving for retirement, but a new survey shows they're feeling better about retirement savings than childless Americans.
Just more than half (52%) of Americans without children said they were confident about saving for retirement, lower than the 72% of U.S. adults with children who said the same, according to the 2026 Annual Retirement Study from the Allianz Center for the Future of Retirement, part of insurer Allianz Life.
Seven of ten (71%) childless Americans worried that the rising cost of living will prevent them from enjoying retirement, Allianz found after polling 1,000 people ages 25 and older in January. That's more than the 64% with children who said
they worried about that.
The findings challenge assumptions that child-free Americans can save more easily because they don't have to bear the costs of raising a child. In 2026, the cost of raising a child to 18 years topped $300,000 for the first time since LendingTree began tracking it in 2023, the financial comparison site said. Crucially, this doesn't include the cost of college, which averages about $38,000 annually, or another $152,000 over four years.
“It may seem counterintuitive that people without kids are less financially confident and more worried about retirement,” said Kelly LaVigne, vice president of consumer insights at Allianz Life, in a release. “But not having children – and the expenses that come with kids – doesn’t automatically mean you have a plan to save.”
Why might childless Americans have less savings?
Americans without kids may not be as focused on budgeting and planning for retirement or generally, be less focused on the future, financial experts said.
"Parenthood often forces tough conversations about money," she said. "Without that catalyst, too many Americans may be moving forward without a strategy."
Most (62%) childless Americans don't have a written financial plan, compared to 42% of those with kids, data showed.
And the number of childless Americans is expected to rise. More than 15 million adults ages 55 and older, or about 16.5% of the population, were childless in 2018, a U.S. Census Bureau report released in 2021 said. Meanwhile, from 2018 to 2023, the share of adults under 50 who said they were unlikely to ever have children rose to 47% from 37%, according to a survey of more than 2,500 adults by the nonprofit Pew Research Center.
About three in five adults without children (61%) said they can’t even think about saving for retirement right now, compared with 53% with children who said the same, the study said. Those without kids said they're just trying to take care of day-to-day expenses, which doesn't bode well for retirement. About two-thirds of childless Americans worried about affording long-term care, and 54% said increasing housing costs might limit their ability to save for retirement, Allianz said.
Many childless Americans also don't have plans in case of incapacity or death. Only 19.9% of childless adults have a will, compared with 32% of the general population, a Childfree Trust survey of more than 600 adults showed. More than 70% of childless adults report that they haven’t completed any legal planning documents at all, including wills, trusts and power of attorney (POA).
Planning usually assumes Americans have a next of kin, said Jay Zigmont, chief executive of Childfree Trust, which offers financial and estate planning for people without children. "People have wills because they have kids," he said, but everyone really should have one.
What about single Americans?
Singles also have a harder time with retirement savings. Sixty percent of never-married Americans have no retirement savings, Brittany King, survey statistician in the Census Bureau’s Fertility and Family Statistics Branch, wrote in 2022.
Part of the reason may be what some call the "singles tax."
Single people "have been penalized their entire lives," said Marilyn Waters, 76, who lives in central New Jersey and has been single "for most of my adult life." Although she raised two children on her own, starting when they were 7 and 10 years old, "I was able to benefit from filing as single head of household while raising them, (but) it still wasn’t as good as joint filing by married couples."
The singles tax isn't literally a tax in the tax code, but it could cost singles up to $1 million more over a lifetime when including taxes, housing, insurance, and retirement savings during a career, according to a 2013 analysis by The Atlantic.
Some examples of the singles tax include having to pay 100% of rent, mortgages, and utility costs rather than splitting them with a partner. Single filers also have fewer tax deductions, including capital gains on the sale of a residence, and their own tax brackets that can push them into higher marginal rates at lower incomes than married couples filing jointly, financial experts said.
Even buying a home could cost more for a single person earning the same amount as a couple, wrote Brad Case, chief residential economist at Homes.com, in a blog post. It's nicknamed the “single‑buyer tax” because mortgage financing is partly based on the likelihood that income will continue uninterrupted over long periods, he said. Lenders, and borrowers, care whether a mortgage can remain affordable through job changes, slowdowns, illnesses or other disruptions.
"Two incomes provide redundancy," Case said. "One income does not. That distinction remains even when total income is the same."
If one person in a couple loses income, adjustments can be made and the mortgage can often still be paid, reducing the probability of default and increasing confidence for both the lender and the borrower. For a single person, the risk is concentrated in a single paycheck and can quickly lead to mortgage default or other hard choices, he said.
"In housing, earning the same amount isn’t the same as standing on equal footing," Case said. "What matters isn’t just how much income you have – but how many ways you have it."
What can Americans do to save more?
All Americans, not just those without children or who are single, should make a plan, LaVigne said.
"Regardless of whether you have kids or not, writing down a financial strategy is one of the most powerful things you can do for your future security," she said. "And it’s a variable you can control.”
Medora Lee is a money, markets and personal finance reporter at USA TODAY. You can reach her at mjlee@usatoday.com and subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday morning.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Childless Americans are feeling uneasy about retirement savings too
