One of the most interesting features of the recent birth statistics is the rise in the fertility rate for women aged 25 to 29 – although it is still nowhere near the levels of the 1980s. The fertility rate for women aged 20 to 24 has also stopped falling.
This may well be due in large part to the growing contribution of births to women who were not born in Britain – (& one wonders how many of the babies might now have returned with their mother to Poland or other countries in Eastern Europe). But it is even more interesting to speculate on whether this also represents a return to childbearing at a younger age for women born here.
Perhaps those warnings about the ineluctable fall off in fertility with age are being heeded & acted upon.
It may also be, in part, a determination not to do it the way your mother did, having seen the disadvantages of that.
Young women may also have realised – as have their mothers - that if you wait until well into your 4th decade to have children, you may well be almost in your 8th before you become a grandparent.
The jury is out on whether younger parents are more relaxed than older ones – less inclined to go the helicopter route. On the one hand age brings maturity, but it takes you further away from youthful insouciance.
And if women – at least those who want to be mothers – have decided to try a more female-friendly trajectory for building a career, post maternity, rather than in the frantic twenties & early thirties, so much the better.
Younger parenthood should also see an end to the Calamity for gap-year adventurers as Mum and Dad tag along
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