The Good News, Bad News, and Good-Bad News About Fertility Stats for Older Moms

Here's the money quote in yesterday's New York Times report, "The U.S. Fertility Rate is Down, Yet More Women Are Mothers":

"In the mid-1990s, it was almost unheard-of for a never-married woman in her early 40s with a postgraduate degree to have a child, according to the Pew report. Today, 25 percent of women who fit that profile do."

The NYT story's findings are like a roller-coaster ride, plunging to reveal the dim statistic that the fertility rate is the lowest it's ever been in the U.S. (which threatens the economy and the safety net), then climbing back up to the more optimistic findings (certain women who never before would have considered having a kid, such as the highly educated, the never married, and the over-40, are now deciding to have kids and finding ways of doing so naturally or through Assisted Reproductive Technologies).

The roller coaster dips back down, to point out that women of advanced maternal age who've decided to wait to have kids often find that their fertility has declined and they've waited too long. But hang on again, things are looking up for a certain demographic: Did we mention that the numbers of over-40, never-married, and highly educated women who have kids are higher than they've ever been?

"Now, 80 percent of women with professional degrees or doctorates have a child by the time they are 44, compared with 65 percent two decades ago, perhaps indicating that fewer women see long educations or demanding careers as a bar to having a family. And motherhood among women who have never married has risen across racial and educational groups."

Obviously the drop in U.S. childbirth rates are cause for concern, and deciding to have kids late for whatever reason can be a very fraught path. The NYT piece is worth a read and a think, despite the wild rhetorical ride. As for Crunch Time Parents, we consider the fact that more women now have more viable choices about motherhood later in life—however complex the decision to have kids after 40, or at any age, can be— to provide reason for celebration.

Also check out the new NYT video series Conception, and particularly the videos "A Mother's Promise" and "Having a Child Before Becoming an Adult."

Photo by Chiến Phạm via Unsplash.