(Press-News.org) A study by the University of Southampton has shown that women are having children later in life mainly because they are spending longer in education.
Research by Professor Máire Ní Bhrolcháin and Dr Éva Beaujouan of the ESRC Centre for Population Change at the University reveals that finishing full-time education and training at an older average age is the main reason why people are having their first child later in life – both in Britain and in France.
Professor Ní Bhrolcháin comments, "Later childbearing has been a major feature of fertility trends in recent decades, both in Britain and other developed countries. A large number of explanations have been suggested for the trend towards later parenthood, but our study is the first to show that the major influencing factor is that people have been staying on longer in education and training."
The average age of a woman having her first child in 2004 was 27 years-old, three years later than in 1974, when the average age was 24 years old. During the course of these three decades young men and woman were progressively staying longer at school and also going into further and higher education in greater numbers – with women completing their education or training at an increasingly later age. In the late 1970s, young women were leaving full-time education or training at an average age of 18 years old, but by 2004 this had risen by two years to an average age of 20 years old.
"The data we have examined shows that in the past several decades young people have been starting their full adult lives around two years later on average than in the recent past and this has meant family life starting later too," says Professor Ní Bhrolcháin.
The Southampton study focussed particularly on the period between the early 1980s and the late 1990s, during which time the mean age of women having their first birth rose by almost one-and-a-half years. During the same period, the time between women leaving full-time education and a first birth only rose by 0.6 years. This means that about three fifths of the change in age at first birth in Britiain is due to more time being spent in education and training (the figure is four fifths in France). So longer education and training is the most important explanation for later childbearing, although not the only one — there are other contributory factors.
Professor Ní Bhrolcháin comments, "If we start the clock when young women leave full-time education or training, the delay to motherhood, compared across the decades, is much less than looking purely at the differences in their ages at their first birth."
To investigate the study, the researchers compiled and analysed data in Britain from the General Household Survey and in France from the Family History Survey.
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Notes for editors:
1. The study by Máire Ní Bhrolcháin and Éva Beaujouan entitled "Fertility postponement is largely due to rising educational enrolment" is published in the journal Population Studies, and is available by open access online at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showAxaArticles?journalCode=rpst20#read
2. The paper is also to be presented on Tuesday 11 September 2012 at the annual conference of the British Society for Population Studies at the University of Nottingham.
3. Professsor Máire Ní Bhrolcháin is Professor of Demography in the Division of Social Statistics and Demography of the University of Southampton. Dr Éva Beaujouan is at the Vienna Institute of Demography.
4. The figures on time trends in the mean age at first birth are for England and Wales and are age-standardised.
5. In 1980-84 65 percent of those completing their education left at ages 13-17 and 14 percent at 21+. The figures in 2000-04 are 37 percent and 38 percent, respectively.
6. The University of Southampton is a leading UK teaching and research institution with a global reputation for leading-edge research and scholarship across a wide range of subjects in engineering, science, social sciences, health and humanities.
With over 23,000 students, around 5000 staff, and an annual turnover well in excess of £435 million, the University of Southampton is acknowledged as one of the country's top institutions for engineering, computer science and medicine. We combine academic excellence with an innovative and entrepreneurial approach to research, supporting a culture that engages and challenges students and staff in their pursuit of learning.
The University is also home to a number of world-leading research centres including the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, the Optoelectronics Research Centre, the Institute for Life Sciences, the Web Science Trust and Doctoral training Centre, the Centre for the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, the Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute and is a partner of the National Oceanography Centre at the Southampton waterfront campus. www.southampton.ac.uk
7. For more information about the ESRC Centre for Population Change visit:
http://www.cpc.ac.uk/
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