Having Children Later or Not at All

by AmeriStat staff

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(AmeriStat, January 2003) Age-specific fertility rates show the fertility levels among women in different age categories. In 1940, fertility rates were highest among women ages 20 to 29 and lowest among women in older age categories. Well-publicized advances in reproductive medicine have made it possible for some women to give birth at ages outside the traditional childbearing years, but as yet, births to older women are still demographically insignificant. In 2001 there were only 8.1 births per 1,000 women ages 40 to 44 (one-sixteenth the rate for women in their late 20s), and 0.5 births per 1,000 women ages 45 to 49. In fact, fertility rates for women in their 40s are less than half the levels of 1950. Over the past 25 years, fertility rates have increased among women in their 30s, but rates are still highest for women ages 20 to 29.

The trend among women in their 20s to delay or forgo having children has resulted in an increasing percentage of women who are childless. The percentage of women still childless at ages 40 to 44 (most of whom subsequently remain childless) has increased in recent years, from 10 percent in 1980 to 19 percent in 2000.

References

J.A. Martin et al., "Births: Final Data for 2001," National Vital Statistics Reports 51, no. 2 (2002); J.A. Martin et al., "Births: Final Data for 2000," National Vital Statistics Reports 50, no. 5 (2002); S.J. Ventura et al., "Births: Final Data for 1999," National Vital Statistics Reports 49, no. 1 (2001); S.J. Ventura et al., "Births: Final Data for 1998," National Vital Statistics Reports 48, no. 3 (2000); National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics of the United States, 1993, Volume I, Natality (Hyattsville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999); National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics of the United States, 1969, Volume I, Natality (Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1974); National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics of the United States, 1963, Volume I, Natality (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1964); and PRB analysis of data from the 1980 and 2000 Current Population Surveys (June Supplement).

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