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Well, Most men and women of a certain age grew up with them, siblings, one or two, in my case, four, and some even more.

But how is it that today, more and more, and I think the number is actually doubled in the last several decades, more and more Americans are growing up as only children. And what does that mean?

Joining us to talk about the benefits of siblings, Dr. Catherine Pekolic. She's Associate Professor of Economics

at the Catholic University of America. She has a PhD in economics from Harvard University,

author of the book Hannah's Children, The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Earth, and a recent

op-ed for the New York Times titled Life is Better with Siblings. Dr. Pocallock, welcome back.

Thanks.

Why don't we have a single word for a child without siblings?

It's such an interesting question.

We think it's because it was just a pretty rare thing to be until pretty recently. Someone has pointed out

there were some archaic words like oneling that used to be used. There certainly is no everyday

word in our usage today, right? What do the numbers tell us about the number of only children

in the U.S.? Well, essentially the number of only children has more or less doubled.

The share of women who will finish their childbearing years with just one child

has gone from about 11% up to about 20%.

So that's a big increase in the number of women who will finish

out their childbearing years with just one child. And it's about 10% of American children today.

When you were training in economics, what was the assumption in the field about smaller families?

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