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May 7, 2022
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Page 9

Aruba’s ONLY English newspaper
A r u b a ’ s O N L Y E n g l i s h n e w s p a p e r
Motherhood deferred: U.S. median age for giving birth hits 30

By MIKE SCHNEIDER Sunday, Jacobs feels she
For Allyson Jacobs, life in has more resources for
her 20s and 30s was about her son, 9, than she would
focusing on her career in have had in her 20s.
health care and enjoying “There’s definitely more
the social scene in New wisdom, definitely more
York City. It wasn't until she patience,” said Jacobs, 52,
turned 40 that she and her who is a patients’ services
husband started trying to administrator at a hospital.
have children. They had a “Because we are older, we
son when she was 42. had the money to hire a
Over the past three dec- nanny. We might not have
ades, that has become been able to afford that if
increasingly common in we were younger.”
the U.S., as birthrates have While fertility rates dropped
declined for women in their from 1990 to 2019 overall,
20s and jumped for women the decline was regarded
in their late 30s and early as rather stable compared
40s, according to a new to previous eras. But the
report from the U.S. Cen- age at which women had
sus Bureau. The trend has babies shifted.
pushed the median age Fertility rates declined by
of U.S. women giving birth almost 43% for women be-
from 27 to 30, the highest tween ages 20 and 24 and
on record. by more than 22% for wom- Allyson Jacobs stands for a portrait outside her workplace, Wednesday, May 4, 2022, in New York.
As an older parent cel- en between 25 and 29. Associated Press
ebrating Mother's Day on Continued on next page