As maternal age at first birth continues to rise in Italy, this study investigates whether and how the mode of delivery at first birth is associated with subsequent fertility intentions, with a specific focus on differences by maternal age at childbirth. Using weighted data from the Fertility Over Forties survey (2024) on 2375 Italian mothers with one child, we estimate predicted fertility intentions by age at first childbirth (under and over age 35), accounting for delivery type and other characteristics of the delivery. Results show that the mode of delivery at first birth is significantly associated with fertility intentions, with more medicalised or interventional deliveries generally linked to lower intended fertility. At the same time, a strong age gradient emerges: mothers aged 35 and older report consistently lower fertility intentions across all delivery types. Differences across delivery modes within age groups are comparatively modest, and we do not find clear evidence that the association between delivery type and fertility intentions varies substantially by maternal age or healthcare setting. We discuss the implications of these results in light of the recent literature on reproductive careers and maternal age and call for greater attention to mothers’ birth experiences and well-being in demographic research.
Birth rates decline after age 35, even in late-fertility countries. However, it is unclear whether this reflects a reduced intention to have children or increasing difficulty in conceiving at older ages. Using data on women from 14 countries collected in Round 2 of the Generations and Gender Surveys, we examine how fertility intentions, pregnancy attempts and birth probabilities evolve across reproductive ages. Our findings show that the proportion of childless or parity-one women who definitely intend to have a child within three years becomes smaller starting in the late thirties. While before age 40, a lower proportion of women report trying to conceive than express a definite intention to have a child, the proportion reverses around that age. On the one hand, among women with strong intentions, the likelihood of trying to conceive increases with age, primarily due to the increased duration of attempts. On the other hand, among women trying to conceive, uncertainty and contradictory fertility intentions become more prevalent with age, revealing an increasing discrepancy between their reproductive behaviour and their stated intentions. This ambivalence is related to, but not fully explained by, older women’s perception that they may be infertile and longer attempts to conceive. Overall, reproductive attempts and intentions appear to be shaped by physiological constraints and the anticipation of biological or social constraints at later ages. How these constraints are experienced and interpreted varies across countries and is not solely related to the stage of fertility postponement, underscoring the social and cultural nature of reproduction.
This study examines the mechanisms shaping reproductive intentions in Mexico City, a distinctive lowest-low fertility context characterised by fertility limitation without systematic postponement. As a critical case combining very low fertility (quantum) with stable timing (tempo), it challenges conventional demographic accounts that inherently link fertility decline to postponement. Based on 26 semi-structured in-depth interviews with nulliparous and parity-one women aged 25–49, this qualitative research explores how these mechanisms are associated with intentions to postpone or limit childbearing; how these orientations are interrelated; and under what circumstances sustained postponement becomes associated with the intention to limit childbearing. The findings identify four mechanisms: individualism and self-fulfilment; structural uncertainty; parenting and care; and partner dynamics.While the intention to postpone childbearing is heavily driven by individualism and self-fulfilment, the decision to limit reproduction is largely driven by the contemporary crisis of parenting and care. Partner dynamics and structural uncertainty operate transversally across the two orientations. This study demonstrates the inherent dynamism of women’s reproductive intentions, which are frequently marked by ambivalence and periods of indecision across the life course.
Advanced maternal age has been linked to unfavourable birth outcomes, yet uncertainties regarding the generalisability of these associations remain. Socioeconomic resources protect perinatal health, which raises the question of potential mitigation of age effects. Using register data from the Spanish Birth Statistics (2007–2021), this study explores how a wide range of adverse perinatal outcomes relate to mothers’ age and education and their interaction. Statistically significant (p < 0.05) incremental effects of maternal age on mostoutcomes areobserved. Maternal university-level education and, to a lesser extent, medium-level education play a protective role translating into a lower baseline probability of most events already at ages 25 to 29, and, generally, into lower figures across the age distribution. Nevertheless, effects are frequently small and sometimes restricted to specific combinations of education and age, which suggests that the perinatal health impact of maternal ageing should not be underplayed even amongmoreadvantagedpopulation strata.
It is widely accepted that delayed reproduction reduces the population growth rate, with associated effects on population structure and size. Policies (e.g., “later, longer, fewer”) have been based on this conclusion. However, it is rarely noted that the negative effect of reproductive delay on population growth applies to populations with positive growth rates. Many countries now experience below-replacement fertility levels and growth rates that would lead to population decline. In such populations, delayed reproduction increases, rather than decreases, population growth. This paper calculates the effects of delayed reproduction on the population growth rate, the population age distribution, and the equilibria of stationary-through-immigration populations. It does so for reproduction measured by age-specific fertility and by the parity transition matrix. In populations with below-replacement fertility, delayed reproduction leads to higher, not lower, population growth; to younger, not older, populations; and to larger, not smaller, equilibria. Examples are presented using age-specific rates for Japan and age × parity-specific rates for Slovakia; in both cases over a demographic transition from positive to negative growth.
The predicted global population increase, despite declining fertility rates in many countries, poses a serious threat by adding to overpopulation, resource depletion and climate change. This paper supports trends that contribute both to ethically valuable goals such as justice and autonomy, and to reduced fertility rates. The primary focus is on universal women’s education as the means to promote both reproductive autonomy and climate mitigation. Delayed reproduction is one consequence of increased women’s education and should also be welcomed. In order to effectively promote reproductive autonomy, it is essential to challenge the widespread pronatalist ideology. This pervasive ideology influences reproductive intentions and undermines autonomy. Delayed parenthood should not be framed as a restriction, but rather as an empowering consequence of greater educational and economic opportunities for women. Ultimately, supporting social trends like delayed fertility can align ethical, environmental and demographic goals without infringing on personal freedom.
The risks of infertility and pregnancy loss have been growing as women’s ages at birth have been increasing. This raises the question of how such adverse reproductive experiences (ARE) are associated with birth outcomes. We propose an analytical framework to re-integrate infertility, miscarriage and abortion into the demographic study of fertility. It reconnects to the classic framework on the proximate fertility determinants by Davis and Blake and Bongaarts, and it draws on the rather recent approach of reproductive careers proposed by Johnson et al. We use a subsample of 1862 female respondents of the German family panel pairfam who participated in 11 consecutive waves, covering the calendar period from 2008 to 2020. We follow three birth cohorts through 10 years of their reproductive ages. Women aged 35+ years have the highest probability of having multiple ARE, but no births. They also have the lowest risk of having a birth and no adverse experiences. The results suggest that integrating ARE into the analysis of birth behaviour may help to explain age patterns in fertility and the association between desired and realised fertility.
China’s fertility transition produced two distinct demographic pathways to smaller families: one driven by delayed childbearing, and the other by direct limits on family size. Using data from the 2011–2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we examine cohorts whose reproductive years unfolded under successive fertility policy regimes, from pre-policy to one-child policy periods. Kitagawa decomposition shows that delayed first births account for 22% of urban–rural differences but only 10% of educational differences in completed fertility, indicating that urban and rural populations reached similarly small families through different mechanisms. These timing patterns have enduring consequences: when today’s older adults reach age 80, the children of urban and highly educated parents are 2–3 years younger than those of rural and less educated parents, with delayed first birth explaining over half of the educational gap in eldercare timing. The findings reveal a previously overlooked dimension of inequality: namely, that as China ages, differences in first birth timing have created disparities in who has children available to provide care, and when.
The concept of reproductive cues is used to reflect on our childbearing landscape. Originating in life history theory within evolutionary biology, the term captures environmental signals for when it is a good time to have and raise offspring – but also, crucially, when it appears to be a very bad idea. The article discusses how bodily, social, institutional and technological cues for childbearing shape the timing of parenthood today. I argue that the bodies and minds of young women have evolved to be attuned to the examples of their peers, the support available from their kin and community and the status and encouragement – or discouragement – provided by the broader environment. Many economic, technological and institutional incentives favour ever later childbearing, but are increasingly at odds with biological fertility, leading to lower birth rates and involuntary childlessness. The pop song “I think about it all the time” serves to illustrate the search for the right time for motherhood today.
This study examines how educational expansion shapes reproductive trajectories across three generations of Peruvian women. Using Peru’s Demographic and Health Surveys (1986–2022) and biographical interviews with 66 women from 22 family triads, we integrate quantitative and qualitative approaches to reveal complex education-fertility relationships. Five key patterns emerge: educational expansion with fertility postponement, early fertility persisting despite educational gains, increased reproductive agency, evolving responses to reproductive vulnerability and changing life course sequences. While statistical analysis confirms the existence of educational gradients in fertility, biographical data show how structural constraints, cultural models and family dynamics mediate educational effects. The multigenerational Ageven matrix methodology visualises temporal dimensions that are invisible in aggregate statistics. The findings challenge assumptions about education-fertility relationships by showing how demographic transitions operate through family lineages in which educational gains coexist with persistent early childbearing patterns shaped by violence, economic precarity and constrained choices.
Women’s educational attainment has usually been associated with higher childlessness, but the negative educational gradient in fertility seems to have shifted in some countries. One reason for this finding could be the increasing marginalisation of lower educated women in the partnering market. We investigate whether women with lower educational qualifications are less likely to have a first child due to changes in the educational gradient in union formation. We apply logistic regressions to recent European Social Survey data from 28 countries, grouped into four regions, that include women born between 1955 and 1985. For western, southern and eastern Europe, we find a negative association between education and fertility, which narrows at older ages in the western region. The association is positive but insignificant in the Nordic region. We also find an emergingpositive educational gradient in union formation for western and southern Europe that partly mediates the association between education and fertility.
In the Declaration of Human Rights, the right of all adult women and men to found a family is stated. Globally, most adults want to have two to three children. Infertility is one of the most frequent chronic diseases among reproductive-aged women and men, and infertility contributes to involuntary childlessness and to many people having fewer children than they want. This is seen by the United Nations Population Fund as a crisis of reproductive agency. While medically assisted reproduction (MAR) is effective for many people, its success rates are much lower with advanced age. There are substantial barriers to accessing fertility service, such as the lack of recognition of infertility as a disease, low coverage of fertility treatment costs and the lack of availability of fertility care for nontraditional families. Studies, including from countries where people have access to MAR in the public health care sector with no patient payments, show that there are social and ethnic inequalities in the uptake of MAR, as well as social inequalities in live birth rates after MAR. There is a need for universal and equal access to MAR treatments for all people who could benefit from them, including people with infertility, single women and same-sex couples. Furthermore, there is a need to increase young adults’ fertility knowledge to help ensure that they are making well-informed decisions regarding their family building goals.
This summary outlines the main debates from a round table discussion at the Wittgenstein Centre Conference 2024 in Vienna on the societal implications of assisted reproductive technology (ART) in the context of delayed parenthood. While ART provides new reproductive opportunities, it also raises important ethical, social and political questions concerning access, regulation, reproductive agency and the commercialisation of fertility treatment. The interdisciplinary discussion explored how reproductive technology is reshaping understandings of family formation, gender roles and biological limits. Particular attention was given to inequalities in access, the growing influence of markets, reproductive autonomy and the need for informed reproductive decision-making. The panellists also highlighted how social structures, including labour markets and gender norms, contribute to the postponement of parenthood and increase reliance on ART. Overall, the discussion emphasised the need for broader public debate, continued interdisciplinary research and values-based regulation of reproductive technology. ART was presented not only as a medical innovation, but also as a development with far-reaching consequences for society and the future of reproduction.
Contemporary women delay childbearing because achieving the normative prerequisites takes longer than previously due to structural changes such as increasing educational requirements for jobs, rising housing costs and growing employment precarity. Policymakers tend to be concerned about delayed reproduction because of its presumed link with lower completed fertility and potential economic consequences. From a humanistic perspective, a more fundamental issue related to delayed reproduction is that of reproductive justice. Rather than only increasing the number of desired births, reproductive justice prioritises ensuring that people are able to have the children they desire when they want to have them. One possible way to address delayed reproduction is to increase the use of medically assisted reproduction (MAR). Although increased use of MAR has the potential to enable more people to have the children they desire, it may also have undesired implications for reproductive justice because access to MAR is highly stratified.
Low-fertility societies are experiencing an unprecedented postponement of parenthood, driven by structural transformations in education, labour markets, housing and parenting norms. While social expectations push childbearing into ever-later stages of the life course, biological limits remain unchanged, leading to age-related declines in fertility and growing reliance on assisted reproductive technologies (ART). This divergence between social and biological time constitutes a broader “repro-paradox”: systemic constraints delay family formation, yet individuals are increasingly held responsible for the consequences of postponed fertility. The normalisation of medicalised reproduction masks the cumulative demographic effects of fertility postponement, narrowing reproductive windows, rising unmet fertility intentions and widening social inequalities in access to ART. Rather than signalling technological progress, growing ART dependence reflects structural failures to enable parenthood under optimal conditions. This contribution argues for reframing reproduction as a public good requiring collective responsibility and supportive institutional environments. Only through coherent social and family policies can societies restore reproductive resilience and realign biological and social temporalities.
The substantial rise in the age at first birth in recent decades suggests that people are delaying their first attempt to have a child. The age at first birth, however, may not accurately reflect when people first attempt to conceive, given age-related declines in the ability to get pregnant and to achieve a live birth. Through a microsimulation model incorporating biological parameters and sequential Approximate Bayesian Computation, we estimate the distribution of the age at first attempt to conceive from 1960 to 1980 based on the age at first birth derived from Dutch administrative data. Over this period, the average age at first conception attempt, as inferred by the models, increases by two years. Unexpectedly, the average duration to childbirth remains stable despite later conception attempts, which is partly explained by a selection effect at advanced ages favouring couples with higher fecundity, with less fecund couples having higher rates of childlessness. We assess the influence of model assumptions on our results and underscore the promise of Approximate Bayesian Computation for future demographic and fertility research.
The question of whether the ongoing Nordic fertility decline reflects delayed fertility onset, weakening preferences for children or barriers to realising fertility ideals remains unresolved. We examine whether age-specific cohort ideals track cohort fertility forecasts in Denmark and Norway, using Generations and Gender Survey round 2 (2020) data to compare the stated ideal number of children with realised and forecasted cohort fertility at age 45. In both countries, women’s ideal family size exceeds the number of children they have or can expect to have. In Denmark, the ideals-expectations gap remains stable across cohorts, but it is forecasted to widen for the most recent cohorts; in Norway, the gap grows consistently across cohorts. In both countries, the widening gap is driven by forecasted declines in cohort fertility, which in turn are driven entirely by declining fertility before age 30.
We examine the link between the partners’ age difference and the transition to the first birth in Europe, addressing a gap that typically considers age differences and fertility as separate research areas. Analysing GGS-II, we show that this association is moderated by age at union formation. For first unions formed before age 30, partners’ age differences show only a minimal association with births. For first unions formed later, regional patterns emerge. In northern Europe, women are more likely to have their first child with a same-age or younger partner, suggesting changing gender and family norms. In the rest of Europe, men with an older partner are the least likely to have children, while women’s fertility is highest when their partner is up to four years older. Finally, across all regions, men who are at least five years older than their partner in a second partnership are less likely to become a father. This study provides new insights for understanding fertility trends in contexts of delayed family formation and partnerships.
Educational expansion has been a key driver of fertility postponement in Europe. Given the growing share of individuals with a migration background, understanding how education shapes fertility across these population subgroups is becoming increasingly important. To date, the intersection between education, migration background and fertility has received limited attention. Using Belgian register data (2000–2011) and shared frailty models for recurrent events, we examine the association between education and first, second and third births among 1.5 (migrated before age 18) and second (children of immigrants) generation women from six origin groups alongside native Belgian women (women without a migration background). We investigate (i) how educational gradients vary across origin groups and generations and (ii) how fertility varies within educational levels across origin groups, while also considering (iii) the role of selective entry into parenthood. Results reveal striking differences in how education shapes fertility across origin groups and birth orders. For first births, patterns by level of education are similar across origin groups, particularly among the second generation. For second births, variation by level of education is highly group-specific: positive gradients emerge among certain European origin groups, while remaining absent among Turkish, Maghrebi and other non-European groups. For third births, educational gradients are neutral for all groups. Substantial variation across origin groups and generations persists after controlling for educational levels, indicating that factors beyond education continue to differentiate childbearing behaviour. Finally, groups with a migration background show larger unobserved heterogeneity in fertility hazards, highlighting that minority groups cannot be considered homogenous in terms of fertility, and underscoring the need to control for selection when comparing the education-fertility nexus across origin groups and generations.
Unrealised fertility – when people fall short of their childbearing goals – is inconsistently defined and measured, leading to wide variation in estimates of its prevalence and implications for health and well-being. Using a nationally representative sample of U.S. women aged 40–49, this study compares four potential approaches to measurement, finding prevalence estimates that range from 3.5% to 22.4% across indicators. Multivariable logistic regression models reveal that the social and reproductive health correlates of unrealised fertility also vary according to the selected indicator. Improved measures of unrealised fertility are needed to inform our understanding of fertility barriers, including who is most affected, and policies that support people in achieving their childbearing goals.
