Forty-year-old mothers of pre-school children: A profile

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by Mireille Vézina and Martin Turcotte

What you should know about this study
Education—an important factor: Women who have a university degree are more likely to be mothers in their forties
The evolution of fertility among women aged 35 and older
Women’s higher education levels help to explain the increased proportion of older mothers with young kids
Women aged 40 to 44 who had a high school diploma or less were also more likely to have young children in 2006 than in 1986
Immigrant women are more likely than Canadian born women to be older mothers of young children
Older mothers whose oldest child is under 5 are more likely to live in urban areas
Women in their forties whose oldest child is under 5 have jobs that require a high level of skill
Women physicians in their early forties are the most likely to have young children
Women in their early forties who have only pre-school children have higher incomes
Many mothers in their forties are providing assistance and support to an elderly person
The consequences of delayed childbearing for women, children and society
Summary

Twenty years ago, very few women aged 35 and over gave birth to their first child. However, it happens more frequently these days. In 2006, 11% of all first births were to women aged 35 and over, almost triple the proportion observed in 1987.¹ Moreover, the average age of women at their first child’s birth rose from just under 24 in the 1960s to 28 in 2005.²

The increase in the average age at first birth means that more women are having children in their thirties and early forties. According to demographic estimates, nearly half of all births in 2006 were to women aged 30 and over, double the 1981 proportion (23.6%).

In addition, the total fertility rate for women in their forties has been rising. There were 7.4 births per 1,000 women aged 40 to 44 in 2006, compared with 3.2 per 1,000 in 1981.2

The fact that increasing numbers of women in their late thirties or early forties are mothers of young children is a well-documented demographic trend. The increase in delayed childbearing is largely related to changes in society. Women are staying in school longer, participating in the labour force in greater numbers, and are more likely to have jobs that require advanced skills. As a result, they enter the labour force later and delay having their first child.

The various social, economic and demographic consequences of delayed childbearing have also been the subject of many studies and debates. In particular, later pregnancies are associated with certain risks to the health of the mother or the child. Delayed childbearing also has an impact on the natural increase of the population(see the box entitled “The consequences of delayed childbearing for women, children and society”).

Nevertheless, apart from a few generalities, little is known about other recent socio-economic characteristics of women in their forties who have young children. Who are they? Are they more likely to be immigrants? Are they more likely to live in metropolitan communities than in lower-density regions? What are their occupations? Do they have a higher income than other women their age? In addition to having young children, are they caring for elderly persons? The aim of this article, which is based on 2006 Census data, is to answer these questions (for more details concerning the methodology, see “What you should know about this study”).

 

Education—an important factor: Women who have a university degree are more likely to be mothers in their forties

The number of older mothers with a pre-school child or children has more than doubled in the last 20 years. The 2006 Census enumerated 1.3 million women aged 40 to 44 in Canada, and 117,100 of them, or 8.9%, were mothers of at least one pre-school child (aged 0 to 4). That was double the proportion observed in 1986 (4.3%) (see the box entitled “The evolution of fertility among women aged 35 and older”).

According to studies by demographers and sociologists, the increase in the proportion of older mothers with young children is primarily due to higher educational attainment among women and greater labour market participation by women.³ University graduates complete their studies later, are more likely to participate in the labour market and have different expectations regarding their family roles and life in general.⁴ For example, according to economist Gary Becker, the more highly educated a woman is, the greater her labour market earnings and the higher the opportunity cost or financial losses associated with having a child.⁵

Data from the 2006 Census show that more highly educated women, particularly women with university degrees, were much more likely to have their children in their thirties or forties.⁶ In 2006, 13.8% of women aged 40 to 44 who had a bachelor’s degree were mothers of a young child, compared with just 6.4% of women who had a high school diploma or less. The proportion was 19.8% for women who had a doctorate (Chart 1).

Chart 1 The proportion of women 40 to 44 years old who were mothers of young children was higher among the highly educated, 1986 and 2006

Women’s higher education levels help to explain the increased proportion of older mothers with young kids

Highly-educated women make up a growing proportion of the population. In Canada, the proportion of women aged 40 to 44 who have a university degree more than doubled in 20 years, climbing from 11.0% in 1986 to 22.5% in 2006. Statistics suggest that the higher that proportion is, the more common childbearing will become for women in their thirties and forties.

A decomposition analysis shows that just over a quarter (28%) of the increase in the proportion of 40-year-old women with young children is due to the increase in women’s average educational attainment (in the same period). The remainder of the increase can be attributed to differences in the behaviours of younger generations relative to their predecessors, particularly the various transitions to adulthood that are taking place at a more advanced age, regardless of educational attainment.

Women aged 40 to 44 who had a high school diploma or less were also more likely to have young children in 2006 than in 1986

Despite the importance of education, the impact of other factors and the considerable changes in values, particularly regarding women’s role in society and the labour market, should not be underestimated.⁷ The fact that young people’s transitions to adulthood are occurring later and in a less linear manner than in the past has also affected the timing of the first birth for many women. Leaving the parental home, landing a full-time job, forming a stable union, and buying a home are all taking place, on average, at a more advanced age.⁸ Of course, the later young adults make these transitions, the greater the likelihood that there will be a delay in having children.

The changes in the timing of these transitions have affected all women, regardless of their level of schooling (Chart 2). As a result, less well-educated women are twice as likely to have young children at a more advanced age than they were 20 years ago: the proportion of women with a high school diploma or less who had pre-school children was 3.4% in 1986 and 6.4% in 2006 (Chart 1). The ratio between these two proportions points to an even faster increase than for women with a university degree. Some researchers have attributed this slight convergence in the fertility of better educated women and less well educated women to policies that have reduced the conflicts between pursuing a career and having children, such as the availability of child care services.⁹

Chart 2 Women's transitions to adulthood occur at a later age, regardless of the level of education obtained, 1990 and 2006

Education is nevertheless a key factor in understanding the increase in the proportion of 40-year-old women who have young children.

Immigrant women are more likely than Canadian born women to be older mothers of young children

Since education is one of the most important factors in the probability that a woman in her forties will have a young child, those with the highest levels of education at this age are also more likely to be mothers of young children than other women of the same age. This is particularly true of women in that age group who were born outside of Canada. In 2006, 1 in 3 had a university degree, compared with 1 in 5 Canadian-born women. The proportion that had a pre-school child was also higher: 12.9% versus 7.5% for Canadian-born women.

However, education does not explain everything. Immigrant women with lower levels of educational attainment were considerably more likely than non-immigrants to be older mothers of young children (Chart 3). Moreover, the correlation between educational attainment and the likelihood of being a mother in her forties was stronger for non-immigrant women than for immigrants.

Chart 3 Among women aged 40 to 44 with a high school diploma or less, immigrants were twice likely as women born in Canada to be the mother of a young child in 2006

Cultural factors, such as religious affiliation,¹⁰ can enter the mix and may have an impact on the likelihood of being a 40-year-old mother with young children. The same holds true for the relationship between an immigrant woman’s place of birth and her propensity to have young children at that stage of her life. For example, although women aged 40 to 44 who were born in East Asia had the highest levels of education, they were not the most likely to have young children in their forties. Conversely, while women aged 40 to 44 who were born in Central America, South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda were not noticeably more likely than Canadian-born women to have a university degree, a larger proportion of them were mothers of young children (Chart 4).

Chart 4 Though East-Asian-born women aged 40 to 44 were more likely to have a university degree, they were no more likely to be the mother of a child under 5 years old in 2006

Older mothers whose oldest child is under 5 are more likely to live in urban areas

In general, urban populations are better educated and have a higher proportion of immigrants than rural populations. Consequently, women aged 40 to 44 who had only pre-school children were more likely to live in urban areas (89.6% of them) than women in the same age group whose children were all age 5 or older (81.2%) (results not shown).

Metropolitan areas differ with respect to the adult population’s average level of education, income and the concentration of the immigrant population. The Toronto and Vancouver census metropolitan areas (CMAs) had by far the highest proportions of immigrants and led all CMAs in the proportion of the adult population with a university degree (Chart 5). In 2006, these two cities were also the CMAs with the largest percentages of women in their early forties who had a pre-school child. The Guelph CMA, which ranks third in the proportion of women in their forties who have young children, is a university area that has a high proportion of women with a master’s degree or a doctorate (in 2006, it ranked third highest of all CMAs in this respect).

Chart 5 The 10 metropolitan areas with the highest and the lowest proportions of women aged 40 to 44, who were mothers of pre-school-aged children, varied according to the size of the region in 2006

Women in their forties whose oldest child is under 5 have jobs that require a high level of skill

Given that women aged 40 to 44 who have young children are better educated on average than other women in this age group, they might be expected to work in occupations that demand a higher level of skill. Census data support this. About 29.7% of women aged 40 to 44 who had young children were in a “professional” occupation, that is, an occupation that requires a university degree (a bachelor’s degree or higher) (Table 1).  The corresponding proportion was 23.3% for women whose youngest child was between 5 and 11, and 13.8% for women with children aged 12 and over.

Table 1 Distribution of mothers aged 40 to 44 years old by child's age and skill level required by their occupation, 2006

The set of “professional” occupations is very diverse, ranging from physicist to high school teacher, from optometrist to accountant. As a result, a closer look at the occupations of older mothers with young children is of interest.

Women physicians in their early forties are the most likely to have young children

Table 2 shows that in the female population aged 40 to 44, health professionals were particularly likely to have young children. In 2006, that was true for more than one in five women physicians, dentists or veterinarians (22.0%). In fact, when we look only at women specialist physicians (doctors with a medical specialty), one in four was the mother of pre-school children (the highest proportion reported for any individual occupation in Canada¹¹) (results not shown). Following next were women judges, lawyers and Quebec notaries (19.5%); followed by engineers (17.5%) and university professors and assistants (17.2%). In general, the professions with high proportions of older mothers of pre-school children required a high level of specialization.

Table 2 Occupations with the highest proportion of older mothers of pre-school children and the most common occupations of all women aged 40 to 44, 2006

The occupations in which women who have young children are best represented are not necessarily the most common occupations among women in their early forties. The bottom section of Table 2 shows the top 10 occupations among women in that age group. Several of those occupations, such as retail sales clerk, secretary, cleaner and administrative officer, require fewer years of education. Women in these occupations are less likely to have young children when they are in their forties. Nurses and pre-school and elementary school teachers, very common occupations among women aged 40 to 44 that require a postsecondary education, have proportions of older mothers with young children that are above average for the female population (10.0% and 11.5% versus female population of 8.9%).

Women in their early forties who have only pre-school children have higher incomes

In general, women in their early forties who have one or more pre-school children (and therefore gave birth to their first child at the age of 35 or older) have higher incomes than women who have older children (Table 3).

Table 3 After tax income quartiles of mothers aged 40 to 44 years old, by age of their child(ren), 2006

For example, in 2005 the median personal income of women aged 40 to 44 who had one or more pre-school children was $27,500 after taxes, which is more than women who had both school-age and pre-school children ($24,500) and more than women who had only children aged 12 and over ($25,600).

If we limit the comparison to employed women with paid work, we see that the median income of employed women aged 40 to 44 whose children were all under 5 years old was about $5,000 more than women in the same age group whose children were all age 12 or older. Moreover, the lower threshold for being in the top 25% of personal income earners was $49,300 for women who had only pre-school children, compared with $39,400 for women whose children were 12 or older.

These results are consistent with the findings of a Statistics Canada study which showed that women who delayed childbearing earned higher salaries, even when a number of other factors affecting salary were taken into account.¹²

The pattern is the same for family income. Women who have only young children live in families that have higher average and median incomes than women who have older children. Their family income is also more likely to be close to $100,000 a year than that of other mothers: in 2005, a quarter of them lived in families whose income (after taxes) was more than $96,600.

Many mothers in their forties are providing assistance and support to an elderly person

Work-life balance is a concern for most parents with paid work. For women in their forties who have young children, the issue may be of particular consequence. Caring for young children takes, on average, more time than looking after older children. That is true regardless of the mother’s age. However, more women in their forties have aging parents, who may need care or assistance. How much care and assistance do mothers of young children provide to an elderly person on top of the time they spend with their young families?

As shown in Table 4, older mothers of pre-school children spent more hours caring for their children than women who had children aged 12 and over. On the other hand, they were less likely to be caring for an elderly person. However, the difference between mothers of pre-school children and mothers of school-age children was not especially large: 23.7% of women whose children were all of pre-school age had provided assistance or support to an elderly person, compared with 28.9% of women whose children were all aged 12 or over. In addition, women with young children were nearly as likely as women with children aged 12 or over to spend five or more hours a week caring for an elderly person (9.8% versus 10.9%).

Table 4 Number of hours spent on childcare and on providing care to a senior, by mothers 40 to 44, by age of child(ren), 2006

Some mothers may feel the pressures of this dual role.¹³ In 2006, 7.9% of women aged 40 to 44 who had young children spent 30 or more hours a week looking after their children and five or more hours caring for an elderly person. The corresponding proportion for women whose children were all aged 12 or over was 3.6% (results not shown).

Summary

Women who have pre-school children in their forties are still in the minority, but the phenomenon is not as uncommon as it was 20 years ago. Since 1986, the proportion has more than doubled. In 2006, nearly one out of 10 women aged 40 to 44 had a pre-school child, more than double the proportion observed in 1986 (8.9% versus 4.3%).

Length of schooling is an important factor in explaining that increase. Immigrant women, who are more likely to have a university degree, are also more likely to have a young child when they are in their forties. The fact that the proportion of women who are university graduates, including those with master’s degrees and doctorates, continues to grow suggests that the proportion of women in their forties who have small children will also rise.

The professional and economic situation of women who have pre-school children is appreciably different from that of women in the same age group who had their children earlier. The study showed that the occupations with the highest percentages of these mothers in their forties were those which required a high level of skill and more education, such as in medicine, law, engineering and university teaching. There were higher concentrations of them in major urban centres such as Toronto and Vancouver, which are home to many jobs requiring advanced skills. They also belonged to the higher-income segments of the population.

Mireille Vézina and Martin Turcotte are analysts in the Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division at Statistics Canada

Notes

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2. Statistics Canada, Health Statistics Division and Demography Division.
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4. United Nations. (2004).
5. Becker, G. (1991). A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
6. United Nations. (2004).
7. Rindfuss, R. R., Morgan, S. P., and Orfutt, K. (1996). Education and the changing age pattern of American fertility: 1963-1989. Demography, 33(3), 277-290.
8. Clark, W. (2007). Delayed transitions of young adults. Canadian Social Trends, 84, 14-23. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 11-008.
9. Kravdal, Ø., and Rindfuss, R. R. (2008). Changing relationship between education and fertility: A study of women and men born 1940 to 1964. American Sociological Review, 73(5), 854-873.
10. Caron-Malenfant, É., and Bélanger, A. P. (2006). The fertility of visible minority women in Canada. In A. P. Bélanger (Ed.), Report on the Demographic Situation in Canada, 2003-2004 (pp. 79-95). Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 91-209-XPE. Ottawa: Ministry of Industry.
11. Occupations according to the National Occupational Classification - Statistics (NOC-S) 2006. Retrieved July 21, 2009 from /subjects-sujets/standard-norme/soc-cnp/2006/noc2006-cnp2006-menu-eng.htm
12. Drolet, M. (2002). Wives, mothers and wages: Does timing matter? Analytical Studies Branch—Research Paper Series, 186. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 11F0019MIE.
13. Williams, C. (2005). The sandwich generation. Canadian Social Trends, 77, 16-21. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 11-008.