Fig. 5
From: European countries with delayed childbearing are not those with lower fertility
Average maternal age at first birth and average number of children among women born in 1952, 1962, and 1972, various European countries. Source: Human Fertility Database, the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS), and Italy’s Istat. Mean age at first birth for Austria (1952 and 1962 cohort) and Spain (1952 cohort) is extrapolated from the median values calculated in Mamolo (2006) and Martín-García and Baizán (2006). The mean age at first birth (in years) is shown on the x-axis and completed fertility (number of children per woman) on the y-axis. For each country, the line connects the cohorts for 1952 (no point), 1962 (small point), and 1972 (large point), when data are available. Using Ukraine as an example, the average maternal age at first birth dropped from 23 (1952 cohort) to 22.5 (1962 cohort) to 22.4 years (1972 cohort), while the average number of children for those cohorts decreased, respectively, from 1.9 to 1.8 to 1.5 children per woman