Childlessness and Later Fertility Here’s another later-fertility story from the Pew Research Center. Last month they confirmed our suspicion that there are indeed more older moms around. This month they report that fewer women are having kids. Both reports resonate
if you’re a later mom you’ll also likely be a later grandma and maybe not see your grandkids if your kids have kids later too. This is not my worry, but hey, to each her own.
Up until recently, women’s work has been largely limited to bearing and rearing the workforce for free, because they had no other option. But when sex and babies cease to be directly linked, business and government risk losing their major underwriter—the moms, if they don’t offer of family-supportive policies for women who want to combine work and childrearing.
The biggest salary gains were for women who had invested some of the delay time in getting an advanced degree and then went on to establish at work before having kids.
In the run up to Mother’s Day (May 9th this year), FlowerPowerMom has launched a campaign to celebrate midlife motherhood, featuring a series of portraits of and stories from moms who started their families at 40 and after. As FPM
Along with the recession, the drop may have something to do also with recognition, as the teen rate rose in 2006 and 2007, of problems with Ab-only ed — and moves in a number of states away from that.
Likewise, all the additional people who had babies in 2007 (that rise occurred in all age brackets except those 45+ and those 14 and under) were busy in 2008 — taking care of those kids. Demand in the baby realm is not infinite.
On the other hand, recession-based decisions against a baby today among folks who would have otherwise felt ready, will lead to further increases in births to older moms (and dads) down the line. Lots of ripple effects to all these social dynamics.
Hot on the heels of last month’s fertility scaremongering about ovarian reserve came a new scare for women planning to start their families later, this one about autism. Once again, reporting on it ignored essential facts and skewed the takeaway.