Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are expecting their first child, Kensington Palace announced on Monday. Markle, 37, is one of an increasing number of American women who are having babies in their 30s.
“Their Royal Highnesses have appreciated all of the support they have received from people around the world since their wedding in May and are delighted to be able to share this happy news with the public,” Kensington Palace said in a statement.
Their baby will be seventh in line to the throne after Prince Harry. The couple got married in May and began a 16-day tour of Australia, Fiji, the Kingdom of Tonga and New Zealand. They reportedly consulted with doctors before going ahead with their trip.
In 2016, for the first time ever, there were more women in their early 30s having babies than younger moms, according to data from the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released last year.
‘Some of the broadest changes in society, and the most positive, are in women’s ability to decide when, if and under what circumstances to have children.’ Bill Albert, the chief program officer for The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy
There were 103 births per every 100,000 American women between 30 and 34 years old in 2016. Among women ages 25 to 29, there were 102 births. The average age when women have their first child is now 28, up from 24.6 in 1970.
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“Some of the broadest changes in society, and the most positive, are in women’s ability to decide when, if and under what circumstances to have children,” said Bill Albert, the chief program officer for The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.
When it comes to that decision, mothers are still divided. Some 37% of women said a woman who wants a top executive positions should have children earlier, while 41% said waiting is better, according to a 2014 survey of about 1,800 people conducted by the Pew Research Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. About 20% said it would be best to have no children at all.
Older mothers tend to be more educated
Many women who are pursuing higher education appear to delay motherhood, Pew found. The median age of a woman when she has her first child is 30 for those with master’s degrees, 28 for those with bachelor’s degrees, 25 for those who attended a two-year college or some college and 24 for those who attended high school or less.
“The more each hour of a woman’s time is worth, the more reason there is not to have a child right now,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland who studies gender, family and social change.
‘The more each hour of a woman’s time is worth, the more reason there is not to have a child right now.’ Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland who studies gender, family and social change.
The U.S. doesn’t require employers to offer paid parental leave, although some companies do have to offer 12 weeks of unpaid leave for new mothers, including public agencies, public and private elementary and secondary schools and companies with 50 or more employees.
President Donald Trump during his campaign proposed six weeks of paid maternity leave (his platform did not mention leave for fathers). And last month, he proposed new child care tax benefits, including an expansion to the earned income tax credit for lower-income families.
Teen pregnancies and abortions are falling
Women in general are having fewer babies in the U.S. The overall birth rate in the U.S. in 2014 was 62.9 births for every 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, down from 70.9 births for every 100,000 in 1990. This drop in the overall birth rate has not hit every demographic, though. The number of annual births to women born outside the U.S. has risen, recent data shows.
Some theories for the fall include a decline in sexual activity among teenagers and a rise in the use of birth control, including methods such as intrauterine devices. The abortion rate has also fallen in the U.S., although it’s still 14.6 abortions per 1,000 for women aged 15 to 44, down from 29.3 for every 1,000 women in 1980, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nongovernmental organization with offices in New York and Washington, D.C.
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