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Higher Fertility Among Over 40s

Higher Fertility  Among Over 40s
Higher Fertility  Among Over 40s

Women over 40 are having more babies than the under 20s for in the first time in nearly 70 years, official figures for England and Wales show.

The Office for National Statistics data showed there were 697,852 live births in 2015.

There were 15.2 births per 1,000 women aged over 40, compared with just 14.5 per 1,000 women in their twenties, BBC reported.

The last time the over 40s had the higher fertility rate was in 1947, in the wake of WWII.

The teenage pregnancy rate has been in long-term decline and has more than halved from the 33 births per 1,000 teenagers in 1990.

Meanwhile, pregnancies have soared in older age groups from 5.3 per 1,000 in 1990.

The average age of having a child is now 30.3 - a figure that has been increasing since 1975.

Advances in fertility treatment as well as more women in higher education and attitudes around the importance of a career and the rising costs of childbearing are behind the rise, the ONS says.

Liz McLaren, head of vital statistics outputs at the ONS, 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.”

The data also shows that fertility rates have dropped in all age groups under 25 while increasing for all age groups 30 and over.

Women aged between 30 and 34 have the highest fertility of any age group - with 111 births per 1,000 women. The number of births to women born outside the UK has also continued its rise, reaching 27.5% of all births.

Financialtribune.com