On average, women in the European Union have their first children shortly before their 30th birthdays, data shows.
Europeans are waiting longer to have children – and experts say there’s no sign this trend will slow down soon.
Across the European Union, women become mothers at age 29.8 on average, a delay of about one year compared to a decade earlier, according to the latest official data. Currently, women’s age at first childbirth ranges from 24.7 in Moldova to 31.8 in Italy.
Delaying parenthood doesn’t necessarily mean giving up on children, though. Some of the countries where women wait the longest to have children are also countries with higher fertility rates, for example, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Liechtenstein, and Norway, EU data shows.
“It's really about waiting,” Ester Lazzari, a demographer focused on fertility at the University of Vienna, told Euronews Health.
“There's not much evidence … that people don't want to have children anymore; the ideal family size has not really changed over time. It's just about timing,” she added.
There are a few factors that Europeans typically consider “prerequisites” for having children, Lazzari said. They first want to complete their degrees and become financially stable, for example, and generally, they take longer to form stable romantic partnerships than in the past.
Women in Eastern and Central Europe tend to become mothers in their mid- to- late 20s, while those in Western and Southern Europe often wait until their early 30s, according to 2023 data.
Yet “the trend of childbearing postponement can be seen everywhere in Europe,” Lazzari said. “That's why it's very difficult to pinpoint one single factor that can explain the trend.”
There can be health consequences to this shift. While Europeans may want to have children later in life, delaying parenthood can raise the risk of fertility problems. That means by the time they feel ready to have children, they may not be able to have as many as they want.
“The preferred reproductive window has shifted, and that's interesting, because biologically, this obviously has not changed,” Lazzari said.
That helps explain the rise in fertility treatments across Europe in recent years, with more than 1.1 million treatment cycles done at nearly 1,400 clinics in 2021.
However, these treatments can be expensive and emotionally taxing – and in some countries, they are not available to single women, gay couples, or other groups.
