Fertility rates, and their decline over time

grahamg

grahamg

Old codger
Location
South of Manchester, UK
A fun thread where chicken and egg jokes appeared, (posted by this fool), lead me to discover some facts about women's fertility during my searches, and the rate of decline:

Quote:
"At birth, there are approximately 1 million eggs; and by the time of puberty, only about 300,000 remain. Of these, only 300 to 400 will be ovulated during a woman's reproductive lifetime. Fertility can drop as a woman ages due to decreasing number and quality of the remaining eggs."

"How many eggs does a woman have at 40?
An average 40 year old woman may only release 3 healthy eggs in a full year! 3 chances in 1 year, isn't many! If there are any other problems (tubes, sperm, uterus) this can make it even MORE difficult to conceive after 40."
 

Back to some serious stuff:

"Average Age of Marriage in the U.S.
The average age of marriage has been trending up, as more Americans wait longer to get married. According to 2018 statistics, the average age at which women get married is age 27.8 years. For men, the average age of marriage is 29.8 years.1

That's an increase of nearly a decade over the past century. In 1920, the average woman got married at 21.2 years old while men married at 24.6 years of age."

https://www.brides.com/what-is-the-average-age-of-marriage-in-the-u-s-4685727
 

Dean Martin & Helen O'Connell - How D'Ya Like Your Eggs In The Morning?​

One of the songs of the period that my wife and I so love is that of the above. We hear it many times at festivals, vintage shows and elsewhere. As Dean sings: "How Do You Like Your Eggs In The Morning," my wife interjects: "Unfertilised."
 
grahamg said:
As long as they dont come to regret it later, and they've missed their chance to have that little bundle of fun in their arms :unsure:(?)
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The problem there Graham is, nobody has a crystal ball. So many times we have been asked: "What will you do when you get old?" To which I answer, "Probably be in the same nursing home as you, the only difference between us being, I won't be wistfully looking out of the window waiting for a visit from my family." One fellow who used to go on quite a bit about married couples who didn't procreate said, when I responded with that statement: "Ain't that the truth."
 
horseless carriage said:
The problem there Graham is, nobody has a crystal ball. So many times we have been asked: "What will you do when you get old?" To which I answer, "Probably be in the same nursing home as you, the only difference between us being, I won't be wistfully looking out of the window waiting for a visit from my family." One fellow who used to go on quite a bit about married couples who didn't procreate said, when I responded with that statement: "Ain't that the truth."
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You'll certainly be in the same boat as I because my estrangement from my one child, and subsequent exclusion from my two grandchildren's lives, (all due to my ex.'s attitude, and the family law system supporting her, oh and yes, let's acknowledge too, my daughter has a similar kind of steel in her make up too!).
Choosing to have children, or saying you don't want them sometimes, is a funny one, and I can give you an amusing example of this. My ex.'s best friend from school, who has become a very good friend to me, whilst shunning my ex. since she ran off with another man, ("too smugly" she felt), well she always said she didn't want to have children. However, when I told her my then wife was pregnant, my friends first response was, "I'm being left behind", and a few weeks later we learned she was pregnant too, (she went on to have three more!).
 
Aunt Marg said:
The single movement today is gaining more and more momentum all the time.
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Its a very difficult one for the young women I'd guess, when so many young men shy away from becoming fathers too, (perhaps fearing, or acknowledging perhaps, they might end up in my situation). I certainly don't regret becoming a father, though conversely, or contradictorily, (if that's a word), I couldn't do it we're I to live my life again, knowing what I know now?. :)
 
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A 100 years ago, a 24 year old guy was making enough to support a wife, and a bunch of kids. I don't know if that many 24 year old guys are in that position to provide for a stay at home wife and a bunch of kids.. One strange thing is that all of my guy pals have divorced, and have a second family. Plus, I'd say more of the "younguns" have families, where only the mother is present. It seems the father is only needed for about 4 minutes at best.
 
grahamg said:
I'll have to repeat my often used argument, that if it didn't matter whether the babe in your arms was your own, then it wouldn't matter to anyone whether they got mixed up in maternity hospitals(?). :) :(
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I don't think you can compare the two, since you can't accidentally adoption a child (whereas "mix-ups" are, by definition, accidental).
 
grahamg said:
Back to some serious stuff:

"Average Age of Marriage in the U.S.
The average age of marriage has been trending up, as more Americans wait longer to get married. According to 2018 statistics, the average age at which women get married is age 27.8 years. For men, the average age of marriage is 29.8 years.1

That's an increase of nearly a decade over the past century. In 1920, the average woman got married at 21.2 years old while men married at 24.6 years of age."

https://www.brides.com/what-is-the-average-age-of-marriage-in-the-u-s-4685727
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In my family the women married much younger.
 
If the Fertility rates are dropping, that is probably a Good thing. There are already too many people on the planet, and with the advances in automation, etc., human labor is becoming more obsolete with every passing year. If present trends continue, the poverty rates will begin to skyrocket, even in the more affluent nations.
 
Don M. said:
If the Fertility rates are dropping, that is probably a Good thing. There are already too many people on the planet, and with the advances in automation, etc., human labor is becoming more obsolete with every passing year. If present trends continue, the poverty rates will begin to skyrocket, even in the more affluent nations.
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People choosing to have fewer children is said to be linked to increased incomes or opportunities for women in the workplace, as stated in the post below yours, and of course China's one child policy, now being relaxed of course because it was so effective, was pretty close to coercion, (only a very few women disobeying, though female babies were abandoned, in favour of male, or so they could have a boy, being a dreadful side effect).
 
Murrmurr said:
I don't think you can compare the two, since you can't accidentally adoption a child (whereas "mix-ups" are, by definition, accidental).
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You can compare the two simply to make a point in an argument surely, because accident though of course it is when babies get mixed up in maternity hospitals, the emotional effects upon all concerned is hard to over state, and yet in the post I was responding to it is suggested there is an equivalence between having your own child, and having to adopt because you're unfertile!
 
grahamg said:
You can compare the two simply to make a point in an argument surely, because accident though of course it is when babies get mixed up in maternity hospitals, the emotional effects upon all concerned is hard to over state, and yet in the post I was responding to it is suggested there is an equivalence between having your own child, and having to adopt because you're unfertile!
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IMO, it's reasonable to suggest that a person or couple who desire a child desperately enough to adopt someone else's is emotionally prepared to love the child as though s/he is their own. I recently *only* fostered a child and I felt like we were father and son 100%. (and I tried not to)
 
It's all part of female emancipation. In the past, a woman had little choice....when she married she resigned herself to child-bearing and running the household. Now we see how motherhood is not the be-all and end-all of a woman's life.
 
Rosemarie said:
It's all part of female emancipation. In the past, a woman had little choice....when she married she resigned herself to child-bearing and running the household. Now we see how motherhood is not the be-all and end-all of a woman's life.
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I think there's simply an increase in the number of people who see the world as a mess and don't want to bring children into it.
 
Beyond fertility............ I really think health in general has been declining at a very fast rate.

We seem to see younger people with onset of issues
 
Murrmurr said:
IMO, it's reasonable to suggest that a person or couple who desire a child desperately enough to adopt someone else's is emotionally prepared to love the child as though s/he is their own. I recently *only* fostered a child and I felt like we were father and son 100%. (and I tried not to)
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I think its reasonable too, unless the suggestion were to be the majority of parents could choose to be a parent to someone else's child, and be able to love them like their own, (such people are exceptional in my view). :)
 

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