Random Research
According to the UK Office of National Statistics in 1996 mothers over 35 years of age 14,952 had their first child and in 2001 there were 27,468 mothers who had their first child over the age of 35 with the total number of women having a first child remaining relatively consistent. Fertility rates reveal that between 2001 and 2004 the number of births per 1,000 women increased from 669,100 to 716,000. Over the past 30 years birth rates have increased for women aged 30-40 while they have fallen for younger women
A report from Finland ‘Trends in Social Protection in Finland 2004’ stated that
‘There is also an increasing number of women who remain childless. At the moment, 15 percent of middle-aged women are childless. In the future this figure is expected to rise to 20 percent. Childlessness is most common among highly educated women.’
At a recent European summit on population and family policies across the European Union, Joakim Palme, Director, Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm, described the findings of their recent report: Sustainable policies in an ageing Europe: modernising family polices. This analysed social trends in Europe: an ageing society, declining marriage, fertility and birth rates, and an increased female labour force.
Mr Palme said that if the European social model was to be sustainable, policy-makers needed to make wide-ranging reforms to current social protection systems and fine-tune the relationship between encouraging higher birth rates, improving Europe’s skills base and increasing the labour supply to enlarge the future tax base.
Education plays an important role, as building up Europe’s “human capital” (i.e. a highly-skilled work force) will increase GDP per capita growth, providing revenue to care for an ageing population.
However, the study also found that, in some Member States, prolonging education reduced fertility levels as women delayed having children to continue their studies and some then decided not to have children at all because of the negative impact this would have on their employment opportunities.
A report from Finland ‘Trends in Social Protection in Finland 2004’ stated that
‘There is also an increasing number of women who remain childless. At the moment, 15 percent of middle-aged women are childless. In the future this figure is expected to rise to 20 percent. Childlessness is most common among highly educated women.’
At a recent European summit on population and family policies across the European Union, Joakim Palme, Director, Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm, described the findings of their recent report: Sustainable policies in an ageing Europe: modernising family polices. This analysed social trends in Europe: an ageing society, declining marriage, fertility and birth rates, and an increased female labour force.
Mr Palme said that if the European social model was to be sustainable, policy-makers needed to make wide-ranging reforms to current social protection systems and fine-tune the relationship between encouraging higher birth rates, improving Europe’s skills base and increasing the labour supply to enlarge the future tax base.
Education plays an important role, as building up Europe’s “human capital” (i.e. a highly-skilled work force) will increase GDP per capita growth, providing revenue to care for an ageing population.
However, the study also found that, in some Member States, prolonging education reduced fertility levels as women delayed having children to continue their studies and some then decided not to have children at all because of the negative impact this would have on their employment opportunities.
Comments
It does not surprise me that these freedoms are affecting the average age at which women are starting to consider becoming mothers. Women are finding fulfilment in wildly varying ways, which means that having a child is not a foregone conclusion.
But – I am not likely to ever agree with social policies that just aim to encourage higher birth rates:
a) It would appear that birth rates would increase if women’s education was lowered, but I would fight against any policy that deliberately aimed to lower any group’s average education levels.
b) I also don’t think that women should be given any incentives to have children. This practice would encourage women to have a child even if they are not ready to be a mother, which is not good for the child! On a wider level, I find policies like this reprehensible because they promote motherhood as being better than the other options that are available to women.
One thing I have seen is that the friends I have who took the decision to wait to have children, even if they married young, all had problems and agonies conceiving.