Childbirth in England and Wales fell to its lowest recorded level over the past decade [1] in all educational groups, a study reveals.
The research, from the University of Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, found women had fewer children, and did so later in life, between 2010 and 2020.
Better educated women were delaying childbirth at a greater rate than those who were less well educated, researchers discovered.
The birth rate for well-educated women whose parents were also highly educated dropped from 1.8 to 1.4 children per woman during the period.
Less-educated women had their children younger in life, but the birth rate for this category also saw a drop — showing all women were having children later. The study said it had found a “substantial decline in each education group”, defined either by women’s parents’ education alone or by a woman’s own education relative to her parents’ education.