Most British women now wait until age of 32 to have their first child

MOST women now have their first child from the age of 32, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.

It is the first time that the majority of women are waiting until the age of 32 to have their first child, and continues a trend of women opting to become mothers later in life.

The ONS said there had been a “shift” in the age of first-time mothers over time, and it is now more than 10 years older than it was for those born in 1950.

Experts have attributed the rise in the age of first-time mothers to factors including advances for women at work, the cost of raising children, and it taking longer to meet a suitable partner.

Just 49 per cent of women born in 1992 had a child by the age of 31, the figures for 2022 show, which is down by four percentage points from 53 per cent two years earlier, suggesting the pandemic may have also had an impact on fertility rates. Meanwhile, the proportion of women born in 1991 with a first child by the age of 32 was 55 per cent, although this was also down, by three percentage points, on the year before.

Kerry Gadsdon, of the ONS centre for ageing and demography, said: “The reasons for women having children later – or not having them at all – may include greater participation in higher education, getting married or forming partnerships later in life, financial pressures or choosing to have a longer working career before starting a family.

“Our results also show that women born in early 2000s are much less likely to have children in their early 20s than previous generations of women,” she said. “It remains to be seen what impact this may have on average family size in the future.”

The statistics for 2022 also reveal that a record number of women were childless at 30. Of those born in 1993, 56.5 per cent did not have children at 30, compared to 42 per cent of women born in their mother’s generation, around 1965.

The average age a woman had their first child first hit 30 for those born in the 1970s, up from 26 in 1960. But it remained stable at around 30 to 31 until the latest data revealed the increase for women born in the early 1990s.

Women are also leaving it later to have two children, if they choose to expand their family at all. The data, which only include women up to the age of 45, reveals the average number of children per mother is 1.94.

A two-child family is still the most common unit, though, accounting for 38 per cent of families, the data show. For women born in 1950, 44 per cent had two children, compared to 38 per cent of those born in 1977. Similarly, the number with three children fell from 20 per cent to 17 per cent.

There has also been a sharp rise in the number of women having children after the age of 50 – up by 15 per cent in three years, the ONS figures show. Between 2019 and 2021, 824 mothers over the age of 50 had a child, up from 701 in the three previous years.

The latest data also showed seven babies had been born to mothers aged 60 and over, with two mothers having children at 65 and older.