American singles are cooling dramatically on fertility treatments — even as their interest in marriage heats up. Willingness to consider IVF has fallen from 44% in 2017 to just 18% in 2026, according to a new cut of the Singles in America survey reported by the Golden Cub Club, drawing on the Kinsey Institute's 15th annual study funded by Match.
The declines extend across the board: willingness to consider egg freezing fell from 33% to 17%, and openness to adoption dropped from 53% to 27%. These are people outside a clinic saying whether they would even consider walking in — a thinner claim than how many patients start a cycle, but one that changes the family conversation. Among singles ages 18 to 49, only 38% said they want children, including just 32% of women, according to phys.org's coverage of the survey.
The destination looks thinner too, even as the desire for partnership grows. Over the same era, interest in marriage moved the other way: the share of singles who said they would like to marry someday rose from 33% in 2010 to 45% in 2026. More people want a committed future; fewer will name kids — or the medical and legal paths that make a later start possible.
About 5,000 U.S. singles answered the survey online in March and April 2026. They were 18 and older and not married, living with a partner, or in a committed relationship. For relatives still pitching egg freezing as the modern bridge to a later baby, the data carry a blunt message: most singles under 50 don't say they want kids, and far fewer will even consider the bridge than a decade ago. Name the real decision — partnership first, parenthood maybe — before anyone books a consult.
Photo: Niagara, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons