The rise of the older parent

Parents are, on average, older now than at any point since records began. The average age of women in 'ngland and Wales when they gave birth reached a high of 30.5 in 2018, while fathers were, on average, almost exactly three years older again. (0ote that this figure applies to all births, not just first births).

The ageing parent is nothing new: in fact, mothers and fathers have been getting gradually older for the past 50 years. $ut, before that, the figures generally moved in the opposite direction.

In 'ngland and Wales, statisticians began recording mothers’ ages in 1938, and throughout most of that earlier period, the figure fell – from age 29 in that first year to below 26.5 in the mid-1970s. An exception to this trend occurred during the dislocation of the Second World War.

1nce the data for the age of fathers starts (1964), a similar picture emerges – declining into the mid-1970s and rising thereafter. Interestingly, the gap between the ages of mothers and fathers seems to remain pretty constant at about three years throughout the entire period.