Les maternités tardives : de plus en plus fréquentes dans les pays développés

Les adultes ont leurs enfants de plus en plus tard depuis 1970, sous l’influence de la diffusion de l’enseignement supérieur, la participation croissante des femmes au marché du travail et l’évolution des comportements familiaux. La diffusion de la contraception moderne et un meilleur accès à l’avortement ont aussi joué un rôle en permettant aux femmes et aux couples de mieux planifier leurs naissances. En s’appuyant sur la Human Fertility Database, les auteurs décrivent l’augmentation de la fécondité à 40 ans ou plus dans les pays à faible fécondité d’Europe, d’Asie orientale, d’Amérique du Nord et d’Australie

Late childbearing continues to increase in developed countries

Broad societal and cultural changes since the 1970s have provided incentives for young people to postpone parenthood. The greater access to and longer pursuit of higher education, the greater involvement of women in the labour market, and changes in family behaviour have contributed to a long-term increase in age at parenthood. The spread of effective contraception and wider access to abortion have also played a part, helping women and couples better plan the timing of births. Using data from the Human Fertility Database, we document a rise in fertility rates among women aged 40 and older in low-fertility countries of Europe, East Asia, North America, and Australia

Changing family and partnership behaviour. Common trends and persistent diversity across Europe

Following the era of the ‘golden age of marriage’ and the baby boom in the 1950s and 1960s, marriage has declined in importance, and its role as the main institution on which family relations are built has been eroded across Europe. Union formation most often takes place without a marriage. Family and living arrangements are currently heterogeneous across Europe, but all countries seem to be making the same shifts: towards fewer people living together as a couple, especially in marriage; an increased number of unmarried couples; more children born outside marriage; and fewer children living with their two parents. The relationship between these changing living arrangements, especially the decline of marriage, on the one hand, and the overall level of fertility, on the other, is not straightforward. In most countries, marriage rates and fertility declined simultaneously. However, the aggregate relationship between marriage and fertility indices has moved from negative (fewer marriages imply fewer births) to positive (fewer marriages imply more births). Thus, the decline of marriage, which is a part of the second demographic transition (see Overview Chapter 6), cannot be considered an important cause of the current low fertility level in many European countries. On the contrary, in European countries where the decline of marriage has been less pronounced, fertility levels are currently lower than in countries where new living arrangements have become most common

Has childlessness peaked in Europe ?

Almost a quarter of European women born in the first decade of the twentieth century had no children. Childlessness decreased in later cohorts, and among women born in the 1940s only one in ten, on average, remained childless. In the west, an upturn in childlessness was observed from the late 1940s cohorts, reaching an average of 15% in northern Europe and 18% in western Europe. In recent years, the increase has been most notable in southern Europe – where up to a quarter of the women born in the 1970s may remain childless – due to weak family policies combined with persistent gender inequalities that make it difficult for women to reconcile work and family life

La proportion de femmes sans enfant a-t-elle atteint un pic en Europe ?

Près d’un quart des femmes nées en Europe dans la première décennie du XXe siècle n’ont pas eu d’enfant. Le taux d’infécondité diminue dans les générations suivantes, seule une femme sur dix en moyenne restant sans enfant parmi celles nées au début des années 1940. Le taux d’infécondité réaugmente ensuite, atteignant dans les générations nées à la fin des années 1960 en moyenne 15 % en Europe du Nord et 18 % en Europe de l’Ouest. C’est en Europe du Sud qu’il a le plus augmenté récemment – jusqu’à une femme sur quatre nées dans les années 1970 pourrait y rester sans enfant – en raison de la faiblesse des politiques familiales et des inégalités de genre encore très marquées qui rendent difficile la conciliation entre travail et famille