WUNRN
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German Women Wait Longer to Have a First Child, Survey Shows |
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By Claudia Rach German women are waiting longer until they have their first child, a survey showed, in a further indication of the demographic trends that contribute to Germany's population decline. Women in Germany, the European Union's most populous nation, give birth to their first child on average aged 26. That's three years older than in the 1960s, the Federal Statistics Office said today, announcing the results of a survey of 12,500 women aged 16-75 conducted in fall 2006. The age for starting a family ``has been pushed back,'' Sabine Bechtold, the head of the statistics department for population, education and government, told reporters at a press conference in Berlin. The survey adds to statistics published in September by the Wiesbaden-based statistics office showing Germany's birth rate fell in 2006 for the third consecutive year. With a fertility rate among the lowest in Europe for the past four decades, Germany's population is forecast to shrink to 69 million from 82 million by mid-century, the statistics office said. By 2050, Germans aged 65 and older will outnumber those below 20 by two to one, and only half the population will be of working age. Every fifth woman aged between 40 and 49 in Germany doesn't have children, today's study showed. It also identified a correlation between education and child-bearing, with a greater likelihood of women in western Germany being without a child when they have been through higher education. Taking Germany as a whole, 21 percent of women aged between 40 and 49 who had been through higher education were childless. Of those with a lower educational attainment, just 14 percent were without children, the survey found. |
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