Rate has more than trebled in over-40s since 1981 and average age of women giving birth is now 30.3, ONS figures show

The fertility rate of women aged 40 and above has surpassed that of women aged under 20 for the first time since 1947, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The older age group had the largest percentage increase (3.4%) in fertility rates in 2015, the figures show, while the younger age group had the largest percentage decrease (7.1%), continuing a decline that has been taking place since 1999.

The fertility rate of women aged 40 and over has now more than trebled since 1981.

The ONS statistician Elizabeth McLaren said: “The trend for women to have babies at older ages continued in 2015. Over the last 40 years, the percentage of live births to women aged 35 and over has increased considerably. Women aged 40 and over now have a higher fertility rate than women aged under 20. This was last recorded in the 1940s.”



On the trend of older mothers, the report said: “In most developed countries, women have been increasingly delaying childbearing to later in life, which has resulted in rising fertility rates among older women.

“This may be due to a number of factors such as increased female participation in higher education and the labour force, the increasing importance of a career, the rising costs of childbearing, labour market uncertainty and housing factors.

“Rising fertility rates at older ages have affected the average age of mothers, which has been increasing since 1975, reaching 30.3 years in 2015.”

Last year fertility rates decreased in age groups under 25 and increased in age groups over 30. Women aged 30-34 had the highest fertility rate of any age group since 2004, when women aged 25-29 were the most fertile.

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Jemima Olchawski, head of policy at equality group the Fawcett Society, said: “We know that 54,000 women every year have to leave their job early after they have a baby or get pregnant as a result of being sacked, made redundant, or poor treatment. We also know from research by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that those trends are worse for younger mothers. What’s more we also know that the motherhood penalty in terms of pay is greatest, again, for women who have their children under 33. So it might be that women are realistically assessing that having a child younger is more likely to have a detrimental impact on their experiences at work and so delaying it for those reasons.”



Clare Murphy, director of external affairs at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said the figures contradicted media scare stories that women’s fertility “falls off a cliff at 35”.

“Fertility rates for women in their late 30s are not really that far out than for women in their late 20s,” she said. “In terms of risk, there are certain issues in pregnancy. You may be at a slightly higher rate of having complications. You may be more likely to have a caesarian. But these are all manageable.

“If anything women are made overly aware of their biological clock. As a charity that provides abortion services, one of the things we increasingly see is older women with unplanned pregnancies.”

Murphy said the figures also highlighted the huge fall in the number of teenage pregnancies. She said this downward trend reflected higher numbers of young people staying on at school and aspiring to go to university before they settle down and start a family.



“I think there’s some evidence to suggest there’s less sex altogether in younger age groups, perhaps with the advent of social media,” she added. “Perhaps they are doing different things in their free time. Alcohol consumption has declined pretty dramatically in younger age groups.”

Rosalind Bragg, director of Maternity Action, said it was not surprising that parents were delaying pregnancy due to a combination of financial pressure, job insecurity and declining maternity benefits. “Many women would happily have babies at a younger age if they were confident their employer would be supportive and their finances added up,” she added.

“Statutory maternity pay in the UK is very low by European standards. Pregnant women and new mothers face extraordinarily poor treatment at work. Recent government research found that one in nine pregnant women lose their job because of unfair and unlawful treatment by their employer.”

There were 697,852 live births in England and Wales in 2015, a 0.4% increase on 2014. The average age of mothers rose from 30.2 in 2014 to 30.3 years, and the total fertility rate in England and Wales decreased to 1.82 children per woman.



The ONS found that 27.5% of live births in 2015 were to women born outside the UK, the highest level on record. This figure has increased every year since 1990, when it was 11.6%.

The population aged 16 and over who are single has steadily increased, from 30% in 2002 to 35% in 2015, according to another ONS report released on Wednesday. An ONS spokesman said: “People are choosing to form partnerships later and that may well be a cause for why women are coming to motherhood later.”

A higher percentage of the female population (9%) than the male population (7%) were divorced. The report suggested this was because more men tend to re-marry than women.

