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
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
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