This paper investigates the factors associated with the postponement and recuperation of
childbearing in Britain. First, the paper uses aggregate data from vital registration statistics to
examine trends in the timing and quantum of fertility among British birth cohorts from 1940 to
1963. Then, the paper investigates, at the individual level, the demographic and socio-economic
factors associated with recuperation among one specific birth cohort. Patterns of childbearing in
Britain have changed dramatically over the past 50 years, including an increase in the average age
at entry into motherhood, increases in childbearing rates at older ages and an increase in
childlessness (Kneale and Joshi, 2008; Sigle Rushton, 2008). However, most recent estimates of
cohort fertility suggest that the postponement of fertility may have stabalized, with the 1980 birth
cohort experiencing higher fertility rates in their late twenties than was the case for those born in
1975 (ONS, 2009). Fertility patterns in Britain are characterised by large educational differences in
the timing of entry into childbearing (Rendall and Smallwood, 2003) and the percentage remaining
childless (Berrington, 2004). In this paper we investigate these educational differences for women
born in Britain in one week of March 1958 who have been followed up since birth within the
National Child Development Study (NCDS). The NCDS is unique in that it provides information on
the respondent’s fertility intentions recorded at ages 23, 33 and 42 with observed fertility through to
age 50. At each sweep of the study a wealth of other demographic and socio-economic information
(such as partnership and employment status) is available. Hence we can extend previous wor