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No Waiting: Younger Women Are Saying Yes to Motherhood
By Sue Shellenbarer
Wall Street Journal
For nearly 40 years, women have been delaying childbirth longer and longer, partly to launch careers. Now, this trend may be ending.
For the first time since government records have been kept, the average age at which women have their first babies posted a decline -- according to newly released data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Mothers' mean age at their first childbirth fell to 25.0 years in 2006, the most recent figures available, from 25.2 in 2005. Women ages 20 to 24 led the shift, with a 5% increase in the rate of first births.
A one-year reversal doesn't make a trend, of course. But the study lends weight to anecdotal evidence that young women are tuning in more closely to their biological clocks. "It's the first time it's ever gone down, and certainly that's noteworthy," says Brady Hamilton, co-author of the study.
Other factors are at work too, including rising numbers of Hispanics, who tend to start families sooner, says Steven Martin, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. A 4% rise in the rate of first births to older teens, ages 15 to 19, is also playing a role. And the sheer size of the baby boomlet generation, now entering the child-bearing years, may be skewing new mothers' mean age lower.
But some experts also see a shift in attitudes. More young women today just assume they'll have both a career and a family, and on their own timetable, says Stephanie Coontz, director of research for the Council on Contemporary Families. Young women feel less compelled to spend a decade proving themselves on the job before kids, she says.
Sarah Distel, an at-home mother in Oxford, Ohio, and her husband, Christopher, a research technician, had their two children, now 1 and 3, in their mid-20s. Ms. Distel, a college graduate, sees her generation as unique. "We weren't fighting for careers like the older generation. It was something we take for granted," she says. After watching the struggles she has seen older moms face juggling established careers and child-care, Ms. Distel has decided to wait to launch her own planned career in library administration until her children are in school.
Candace Parker, the biggest star in women's basketball, shocked league officials and fans last month by announcing she was pregnant -- at the age of 22. If anyone had a career reason to defer child-bearing, Ms. Parker did; she was the 2008 league MVP and Rookie of the Year for the Los Angeles Sparks and had become the face of the sport in various marketing campaigns.
But after years spent striving to please others, says Ms. Parker, who is married to Sacramento Kings forward Shelden Williams, "this decision obviously was for myself and my husband and my family." Ms. Parker's parents were in their 30s when she was born, and "I kind of missed out" on shooting hoops with her dad and other shared play, she says. She wants her children to have the benefit of young parents.
Close bonds with their own grandparents are important to young women, too. Heather Allen of St. Cloud, Minn., an art teacher whose husband is still in college, had her first baby at 21. She wants her children, now 4 and 1, to know their great-grandmother, 76; she considers extended family "part of the village" it takes to raise a child.
It's unclear whether the country's current economic woes will affect the move toward younger child-bearing. Historically, recessions have reduced family size, but their impact on the age at which women start families is less clear. In any event, Dr. Martin says, "demographers will continue paying very close attention" to whether a cultural sea change is under way.
Write to Sue Shellenbarger at sue.shellenbarger@wsj.com
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