Historian Lucy Worsley caused a furore when she remarked last year that she had been 'educated out of the natural reproductive function'.
Now it seems she might have had a point, after a new study has revealed a clear correlation between intelligence and childlessness - with cleverer women more likely to choose not to have a family.
The study, which was conducted by Satoshi Kanazawa, a researcher at the London School of Economics, found that a woman's urge to have children decreases by a quarter for every 15 extra IQ points.
When Kanazawa, who used data from the UK's National Child Development Study, added controls for economics and education, the results remained the same - the more intelligent the woman, the less likely she was to have children.
Worsley isn't the UK's only famously clever childless woman, with others including BBC presenter Kate Humble and actress Helen Mirren.
In the USA, Oprah Winfrey, Cameron Diaz and Eva Mendes are among the famous names who have said they'll never become mothers, with Diaz adding: 'I have the life I have because I don't have children.'
Mendes too has said that she values her lifestyle too much to share it with children. 'I don't want kids,' she said. 'I love sleep and I worry about everything.'
Humble, meanwhile, told the Times that she just 'doesn't have a maternal gene' and resolved not to have children at the age of 14.
'People are very judgmental,' she added. 'It's as if I made a selfish decision not to have children, but I never, ever, wanted them.'
Humble and Mendes certainly aren't alone, with figures released by the Office of National Statistics revealing that the proportion of women without children has almost doubled since the 1990s.
One in five 45-year-olds is childless, while among those with degrees, the figure rises to 43 percent, suggesting that Kanazawa's findings are sound.
A social study, conducted by social scientist Dr Nattavudh Powdthavee of the University of York, revealed that the notion that happiness comes from having children is illusory and offers yet another clue to why so many clever women are rejecting motherhood.
'Parents spend much of their time attending to the very core processes of childcare: problems at school, cooking, laundry,' said Powdthavee in an interview with the Times.
'It's these small but negative experiences that are more likely to impact on our day-to-day levels of happiness and life satisfaction.'
(Source: Mail Online)
倫敦經濟學院的一位研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn),女人智商每高出常人15分,想要孩子的沖動就減少25%,也就是說,越聰明的女人越不想生孩子。這是他對英國國家兒童發(fā)展調查的數(shù)據分析后得出的結論,若把經濟條件和教育水平也考慮進去的話,結果保持不變。
英美兩國中聰明而無子的女性為數(shù)不少,比如BBC主播凱特·漢博、女星海倫·米倫,以及美國的奧普拉、卡梅倫·迪亞茲以及伊娃·門德斯等。BBC主播凱特·漢博自稱沒有“當母親的基因,并在14歲時就打定主意不生孩子”。而美國女星伊娃·門德斯則表示她極其看重自己的生活方式,無法與孩子共享。
英國國家統(tǒng)計局的數(shù)據表明,上世紀九十年代以來不生孩子的女性所占比例翻了一番,45歲女性中有五分之一都沒有孩子,其中有學位的女性不生孩子的比例高達43%。另外,約克大學的一項社會研究顯示,孩子能帶來歡樂的想法并不真實,這也是很多聰明女性拒絕當母親的原因之一。