Press release No. 475 of 11 December 2019
WIESBADEN – More and more women in Germany have their first child in their thirties. In 2018, 48% of the mothers of the total 366,000 first born children were between 30 and 39 years old. 3% of the first-borns had a mother who was over 40. The average age of women at the birth of their first child was 30 years. Based on microcensus data, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that about a fifth of all women of a cohort at the end of the 15 to 49 year age period, which is considered as the reproductive phase, had no natural child. The final rate of childlessness (proportion of childless women in all women between 45 and 49 years) rose from 17% in 2008 to 21% in 2018.
The first births of women aged 50 or over - 67 babies in 2018 - have no impact on the final rate of childlessness.
