Help! Justine's going on Channel5 News to talk about the mahoosive rise in the number of women giving birth in their 40s. Your thoughts on the reasons behind this increase would be most appreciated

[JaneGMumsnet]

Hi there,

Some of you may have read about today's ONS survey results, which reveal - amongst other things - that the number of mums giving birth in their 40s has trebled over the last twenty years:

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/sharp-rise-in-women-over-40-having-babies-7932667.html

We've been asked what you folks think about this - what the reasons behind this rise might be -and would love to hear your thoughts so that we can reflect your views as accurately as possible.

Thanks in advance,

Jane

i would have thought it was more to do with education and opportunities. now it's quite rare to find girls who leave school with no idea of what they would like to do and no 'plan' most of the women i know having kids have been older - i suppose they want to have a career that they can go back to rather than start a career later in life

i wouldn't blame men but maybe some women have expectations from men that are a bit unrealisitic

I am worried they are going to have someone else on with her, like that Katie Hopkins nightmare.

I like to think that it could also be that women in their 40s are having more sex.

I'm 40 and have an 8 week old and while I've been chatting to other older mums it's come up that quite a few of our pregnancies have been a surprise rather than planned.

Agree with hecate

A generation of two ago most people were married by the age of 25 and started families pretty much straight away - it was just what you did.

Nowadays almost half the population is expected to go to university, maybe after a gap year, and so will graduate at age 23 or 24, bum around for another year or two until they eventually get a career type job, and finally have the money to enjoy a pretty self-indulgent lifestyle, which is quite hard to give up, throughout the rest of their 20s and early 30s. It's only then I think that people actually start to think they would maybe prefer to settle down with someone, rather than go out, party, go on exotic holidays, meet shag various different people etc etc.

Basically men and women are simply taking longer to grow up - probably becuase life these days is far more materialistic and self indulgent (I want x and I want it now!) that it ever was.

I think in some instances women feel they shouldn't want children "young" (ie in their 20s) as it's not seen as a sensible choice. I know quite a few women who have been hankering after children since 25 but who have hung on and on and on because they feel people will judge them and think they're boring and settled if they drop out of the young and carefree life "too early." When I had my DS at 27 I was surprised at how many friends of similar age expressed envy - that was the last thing I expected!

I think the idea that you have to hang on for quite a long time before getting married and having children can ruin a lot of good relationships as people find themselves drifting along stuck at the boyfriend/girlfriend stage when really they should be moving on starting a family and taking it to the next level so to speak. Without that next level I think a lot of otherwise very good relationships fizzle out as it can start to seem a bit pointless.

I also agree with other posters that it seems to be harder for people to find someone to marry and have children with these days. I have friends in their early 30s who have been single for years and years and who have given up on ever finding anyone. Chances are they will eventually meet someone but it might not be till they're 35/36 at which point it's likely they'll be near 40 before children arrive.

For me I'm TTC in my late 30s (2nd baby) as I didn't meet Mr Right till late.

I imagine the rise in house prices might have something to do with it. If people are focussed on earning enough to buy property, it takes so long these days to get a foot on the ladder and this may be having a knock on effect. In my parent's day, if you had a degree you got a good job, then could most likely afford a house. These days if it's important to you to own your own home before starting a family then you'll have to wait so much longer (obviously only talking about those for whom home ownership is a possibility!)

Also, there have been massive changes to the way we live, within living memory.

Way back when, people used to get a job for life, and - it seems from here anyway - that life was more structured. You got a job, then married, then started a family.

These days, people change jobs more often and have less job security, we also have more relationships - with marriage often not happening until after we've had DCs. We're more used to being consumers, and we're less religious. Perhaps that means that we're more used to the idea that we can have the power to exercise choice in our lives, which leads us to be picker about our partners, rather than marrying younger and then living with it to avoid the stigma of divorce (which of course is less of a stigma these days).

Women especially have more options open to us, and many of us don't feel we're expected to have DCs anymore, it may take a while to decide that actually you do want to. Especially when you realise it's now or never.

I am currently pregnant and shall be 48 when I give birth. I think the reasons for more women giving birth in their 40s are generally:

• because we can (with advances in fertility treatment)
• because more celebrities are having children later, which validates it for the rest of us
• because more people are getting married again after divorce, and starting new families
• because people don't age like they used to (I feel great this pregnancy, better than I did when i was pregnant in my 20s).

Ha! Terrible grammar, but hopefully you get my gist :)

I would have had babies earlier if I had met DH earlier. I had to kiss a lot of immature frogs who were scared of commitment before I found my prince.

It's nothing to do with careers (in my case at least), but it might be something to do with the crippling cost of housing and childcare as well.

I get heartily sick of the misogynist DM saying women are having babies later because they are putting their careers first. It's total bollocks.

I'd love to see a real article about how men won't commit because they don't want to be "tied down" in their 30s i.e when women's biological clocks are ticking loudly. That's largely what's at the heart of the matter.

I often wonder, reading such reports, whether it is generally known that men have anything to do with pregnancy at all.

I didn't meet the right man until I was 32 and we started trying for a baby straight away. A factor in late motherhood is the length of time it takes to get anything done if you need help. I waited just over 2 years before going to see my doctor (so I was 34/35), then I had to wait to be referred, wait whilst the clinic tried IUI first (which has an appalling success rate but is cheap), and then it took 3 rounds of IVF, first round miscarriage, second round unsuccessful, third round DD arrived 3 months before my 40th birthday. So from meeting right man to trying it took just shy of 8 years. I was lucky and had parents willing to pay for my final 2 rounds of IVF, if we'd had to save it would have taken even longer.

So for those like me that need help getting pregnant, even if we started at the age of 30 it wouldn't be until our late 30s or early 40s when we actually have a baby.

I suspect that women's education may also be something to do with it - how many women who have degrees or a fairly good idea of their chosen career path have children in their early 20s compared to those that don't? Is there a certain level of expectations of our life path built into when we have children?

I also don't like the way the focus is on mothers in their 40s - surely that probably means a rise in fathers in their 40s too, noone comments on that.

I agree it's probably down to people (women AND men) taking longer to find the right person, wanting to be settled in their career/have enough money etc before settling down.

I was 27 when I had my first. I'm a bit jealous of some of the older mums I meet, they seem so sorted, in terms of they have had a career, have more money than we do, have become more 'established' in their career so have something to go back to. Whereas I had only had a 'proper' job for a couple of years before going on maternity leave and am now more or less starting again, and crippling myself with the childcare costs.

On the other hand I quite like the thought that when I'm in my 40s my kids will be teenagers!

Owlonstrings and Cokeaholic have got it spot on. It is harder and harder to meet a decent guy in your twenties or early thirties, especially one who wants to settle down and stop clubbing/ travelling/ shagging around/ enjoying himself basically. He'll be building up his career, saving for a mortgage (takes longer and longer to do), paying off his student debts (ditto). All this blaming career women annoys me. We need to work a million hours to afford a family home and we need to find the non-manchild straight vaguely acceptable guy-in-a-haystack who wants to settle down in his twenties or very early thirties for child number one. But apparently it's all our fault for ignoring our biological clock.

Dh and I had to say to ourselves:
'Are we really mature enough and ready for this big change? We've had our fun and fulfilled a lot of our career aims. ..ish... Let's do it before it's too late and we are too knackered!'

I think not having any family around to support you can also be a factor. We saved and saved.
We were younger than 40 incidentally, but I know some friends were a bit the same.

I think a lot of people like to do things in the traditional order of get a house, get married, have baby. The cost of housing now, not to mention the cost of some weddings, means people are having their families later.

I think there is another force at play here. My mother gave us her daughters a subtle but powerful message to work towards a university degree and a career. I think she was rather dismissive of the notion of settling with a family - as indeed she had done.

Not so surprising then that I had one in my thirties and one in my forties, and I am very happy with the age that I did so actually.

But domestic it's not just the men that are travelling/shagging/enjoying themselves, it's the women too! Women tend to see themselves as equal so want time to shag/travel etc as well!

I don't think it's particularly becuase of so called 'career-women' or so called 'men-children' just an entitled sense of 'I want to enjoy myself and have fun' that folk in the past either never had, or only had for a couple of years.

"I often wonder, reading such reports, whether it is generally known that men have anything to do with pregnancy at all."

Made me but actually a very good point

That is a brilliant observation cokeaholic !!!!! Its the men as much as the women, they don't want to commit and be responsible. So so clever.

I really hope that Justine brings this up this evening.

I agree Titchy but far more of my female friends aged 30 were looking for a guy to settle down for babies than my male friends were. They felt the need to hurry up, but the guys just didn't. After all, if the guys spent their thirties shagging around, doing drugs and building up a stellar career, there was always the option of marrying someone ten years younger than themselves and embarking on fatherhood at 44 (like DH's friend). Women don't have that option or at least it's not wildly attractive to them. That's why we see all these threads on MN from women asking advice on getting their DPs to propose and basically get things moving.

From my circle of friends it's mainly down to had a career, enjoyed life as a single professional and just didn't meet the right man any sooner (doesn't mean there weren't any proposals!). Almost none of my friends married before 35, no previous kids either side and only one couple had IVF. These are friends of many years not met through baby groups etc. Not wanting to antagonise anybody, I think we are healthier than earlier generations so fertility is continuing longer (see also later menopauses).

I immigrated in my early 20s, which put everything back - arrived with £200 and a backpack, knew no-one, did not know how anything worked, started off on a sofa in London etc.

And then I took a year off to travel when I turned 30, and had to break into the job market again when I got back, which also slowed things down a bit.

Also I broke up with someone in my mid-20s who I had been with for 5 years+. Put the fear in me - made sure I spend a long long long time with current DH before he became DH and before we had kids so I could be sure.

But actually I think one of the reasons I did not not get down to kids earlier was a sort of innate immaturity. I found it hard to equate 'grown-up' things like owning a house, having a pension, being married, having kids with me, myself. I am not a particularly immature person really, was not huge party animal, or anything like that - it was sort of just not having the ability to inhabit that adult space. Considered myself immature, rather than being immature. Not confident enough to deserve adulthood. Does that make sense to anyone?

Hello everyone,

Disappointingly, the Channel 5 interview is no longer happening, but we are getting asked about this topic an awful lot today, so your brilliant posts have not been written in vain.

Thanks again for all of your help.

Jane