Preview

Delayed Parenthood In The United States

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
930 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Delayed Parenthood In The United States
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the continuous development of society, people's living habits and lifestyles have fundamentality changed. Especially because of the impact of industrialization and gender equity, many couples greatly emphasize the importance of family planning. Therefore, delayed parenthood has become the most common aspect of the revolution in family planning during past decades. Today many people tend to choose delayed parenthood in many high-income countries, and women are having fewer babies and begin childbearing at a later age. In the research "The Best Age for Pregnancy and Undue Pressures," Belleni points out "Women's mean age of first-time pregnancy increased in the US from 21 …show more content…
Many women believe that they should spend time on career and academics rather than on the family when they are at the best age of childbearing. The pregnancy plan can stay for a long time until their careers reach their goals. Additionally, they fear that they can't have enough time and money to raise a child when they are young. On the other hand, they fear that they can't have time to have a child if they choose to have a child when they get older. But most important is that most young women and men perceive that they are not prepared for parenting. Turner, Aronowitz, and Mills claim that delayed parenthood does bring some positive benefits such as better family functioning, higher family stability and a more stable economic position of parents, more accepting and fewer conflicts on playing the parenting role, more satisfied about the marital life (Turner, Aronowitz, Mills …show more content…
Education level appears to be an important factor that is associated with delayed parenthood. According to Turner, women who desire high educational levels are likely to postpone parenthood (Turner 39). In addition, Simpson mentions that now young European adults have spent an increasing proportion of time in education because tertiary education becomes the main way to stable employment, sufficient income, and career development. Therefore, now more than half of the graduate or postgraduate students in most European countries are women (Simpson13). Furthermore, Mills claims that there's a strong "inverse" relationship between education and delayed parenthood (Mills 851). In other words, he believes that more education a woman has, the later the timing of having a child is. Further, the author indicates that substantial differences in first birth timing according to the level of education are evident in all developed societies. For example, European women born in the 1960s with a tertiary education had their first child considerably later than those with lower secondary education only (Mills 852). Moreover, He claims that many women believe that if they have more education level, they can have more responsibility, higher remuneration and greater authority and autonomy so that they can afford the cost of raising a child. Therefore, they likely to postpone the parenthood However, Mills claims that many women are

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the past, it was a natural step that a couple would get married fairly young, and then start a family. However, this is no longer the case and the delaying of childbirth is becoming very common. This essay will consider the reasons for this trend and the possible effects on families and society.…

    • 302 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Aspects of Marriage

    • 334 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Delayed wedding is associate clear trend within the USA. By the first Nineties, median wedding age had up to its highest level within the twentieth century, for each girl and men (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1992). Hence, no matter consequences follow from delayed wedding are touching increasing numbers of young couples. This cluster might not powerfully adhere to ancient norms associated with the sequencing of wedding and childbearing, in order that they and their communities might not be distressed regarding having a baby before the wedding. Further, young girls World Health Organization become single mothers usually claim that their lives are improved by family relationship. For single mothers, “children supply a tangible supply of that means, whereas alternative avenues for gaining social esteem and private satisfaction…

    • 334 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the reasons for changes in childbearing is higher ages of mothers. In today’s society many women are having children at later age then earlier. In the 1940’s, it was norms and values for women to stay at home and look after their children. Women were expected to be married and have children at early ages. This was because they were made to stay at home and be housewife’s and were not expected to work but to look after the children. However, in today’s society, the roles of women have changed dramatically. More women are going into further education and achieving qualifications to work and stabilise themselves economically. Due to this, more women tend to focus on their job careers then on having children this also mean’s the average age of marriage is increasing. The most recent figures from the ‘Office for National Statistics’ show the average age at which men get married is 30.8 years, while women are typically aged 28.9 years. Although many have children outside wedlock, many have children once married possibly because of secularisation. Women because of their careers are having children later then soon. The latest figures show that almost 350,000 children are born every year to women above the age of 30 in the UK. Of these, almost 28,000 mothers are above the age of 40. In 2010, some 141 babies were born to women above the age of 50. This illustrates that women are having children later as they want to focus on their careers and opportunity’s they wouldn’t of had 100 years ago. Patterns of childbearing have changed in contemporary British society…

    • 1133 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Reading the book, “Promises I can keep” by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas was very touching because I am also a woman and I can understand parts of their few points. To me it is so weird to see that young women are having kids at a really young age and it usually the woman that are poor. “Half of the poor woman who give birth while unmarried have no high school diploma at the time, and nearly a third have not worked at all in the last year” (2). That is really sad to see that young woman start to have children around the age 21 average. What cause these young women to have children at a young is that they are in poverty or that they would not be able to carry a child if they wait after marriage. To me that is so shocking to hear that at the age of 27 it is the time were it is hard for woman to have kids because that because now a days it is not hard for a woman to get pregnant at that age, even at an older age they get pregnant.…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Who vs Whom

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Research has shown that women who get pregnant when teenagers earn substantially less money over their lifetime than those for whom pregnancy does not occur…

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    According to Huffington Post, “Women with unintended pregnancies may end up with less education, earn less, and have a harder time supporting their families” (Birth Control Funding 5). Unintended pregnancy also increases the risk of babies being born preterm or at low birth weight, both which raises their chances of health and undeveloped problems (Birth Control Funding 4). “Women with unintended pregnancies are more likely to receive delayed or no prenatal care and to smoke, consume alcohol, be depressed, and experience domestic violence during pregnancy” (Birth Control Funding 4). Martha Bailey also conducted a study in which she linked increased determination of when to have children with positive impacts on quality-of-life indicators, including educational attainment, economic stability, lasting union formation, and mental health and happiness” (Dougall…

    • 1772 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    A main part of the decline can be explained in terms of women simply choosing to have fewer children. As the position of women in society has changed overtime, they have chosen to delay childbearing and to limit the number of children they are having because of several factors. Women now have equality with men because of the Equality Act 2010 as well as receiving increased educational and employment opportunities. Other ways in which women’s position has changed is that there is now easier access to divorce, contraception and abortion meaning that they can avoid unwanted pregnancy so have full choice over when they have a child. Beck and Back-Gernsheim(1995) said that the changes in the birth and fertility rate are due to individualisation meaning that people have more choice to follow their own norms and values as well as making their own decisions, rather the following what society deems acceptable. Also the falling infant mortality rate (number of children dying before their first birthday per thousand of live births) has fallen dramatically as a result of factors such as better living standards, improved hygiene and sanitation, improvements to healthcare and the developments made to the welfare state. Geographers explain that these circumstances lead to a demographic revolution in which birth and fertility fall because women no longer feel they need to have a large number of children to protect against the risk of infant mortality.…

    • 977 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mr Harper

    • 2206 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Hoffman, Saul D. 1998. "Teenage Childbearing Is Not So Bad After All … Or Is It? A Review of New Literature." Family Planning Perspectives 30 (5):236 - 239, 243.…

    • 2206 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    MAT 540 Final paper

    • 1956 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The increase in nonmarital births over the last 40 years, relates to the decline in marriage and an increase in couples cohabiting. Increases in nonmarital births results from many factors, including substantial delays in marriage (Ventura, 2009). Out of wedlock, childbearing has increased among all women of reproductive age and among all racial and ethnical groups in our population (Ventura, Bachrach, Hill, Kaye, Holcomb, & Koff,, 1995). Nonmarital childbearing is not synonymous with single parenting; much of the increase in nonmarital births across all countries is attributed to changes in cohabitation (Manlove, Ryan, Wildsmith, & Franzetta, 2010). The percentage of nonmarital births occurring to cohabiting couples increased from 29 percent in the early 1980s to 39 percent in the early 1990s and more recent estimates suggest almost 50 percent of nonmarital births for the early 2000s (Manlove, Ryan, Wildsmith, & Franzetta, 2010). Most nonmarital births occur to women in their…

    • 1956 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fertility Latino Community

    • 1427 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Marriage and marital disruptions, 2. Contraceptive use and effectiveness, 3. Prevalence of induced abortion, 4. Duration of postpartum infecundability, 5. Waiting time to conception, 6. Risk of intrauterine morality, and 7. Onset of permanent sterility” (Poston & Bouvier, 2010, p. 54). This concept is illustrated in the Figure 3.3 below. The main idea behind this framework is that fertility is impacted by proximate determinants, but these proximate determinants are influenced by three other factors channeled in while the cultural context sets the environment for each…

    • 1427 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Extend Fertility Analysis

    • 1806 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Wilkie, J. R. (1981). The trend toward delayed parenthood. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 43 (3), 583-591.…

    • 1806 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Role of Generativity

    • 8909 Words
    • 36 Pages

    An increasing number of adults today have never experienced parenthood for a variety of reasons (e.g., by choice, infertility), resulting in greater life course diversity. In 1985, 11% of American women between the ages of 40 and 44 years did not have children; by 2004, the number of…

    • 8909 Words
    • 36 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Transition to Parenthood

    • 3736 Words
    • 15 Pages

    Many factors contribute to the marked shift from early to delayed childbearing. Berk (2005) suggests financial circumstances, personal and religious values and health conditions are influencing factors. While Barber; Tangri & Jenkins (cited in Berk, 2004) suggest that women with high-status, demanding careers will less often choose parenthood than those with less time consuming positions. Other factors may include how the parents feel a new baby will impact on their lives in terms of disrupted sleep, caregiving tasks and the couple's relationship.…

    • 3736 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Rlut1 Wgu

    • 2546 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Audience’s attention: Family planning has been proven to provide beneficial outcome for mothers, newborn babies, families and communities. Pregnancies that happen without planning to do so either too early or too late in life or too close to previous pregnancies, increase incidence for prematurity, low birth rate and maternal health compromise. Uses of contraceptive methods are being used more often from women with the purpose to prevent the above mentioned potential consequences.…

    • 2546 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Population Demographics

    • 1325 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Education, religion and economic status are three factors that contribute to lower birth rates. Providing an education and shifting away from “blue collar” workers gives an opportunity to both men and women, thus providing an upwards movement in the economic status of that individual. With more opportunities to work, women tend to give birth at later ages. A religious belief is another factor to contribute to lower birth rates in some religions, as they values more a smaller family rather than a large family. In addition, some developed countries may offer free birth control through family planning services, therefore leading to childbearing at older ages. As less developed countries become more stable, these social conditions can be encourage to emerge as they would have developed countries as a reference point in order to have a more balanced population within their…

    • 1325 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays