Pushing the Age Limit? Long-Term Trends in Late Childbearing: Evidence from Sweden

Francesco C. Billari, Università Bocconi
Gunnar Andersson, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Hans Lundstrom, Statistics Sweden

Childbearing is increasingly postponed towards higher ages in numerous contemporary populations, and there have been concerns that contemporary populations might be approaching upper age limits of fertility that would be problematic to overcome in the near future. In this paper, we aim at analyzing the medium- and long-term trends in late childbearing using high-quality register data quality from Sweden. Some of these data span over the whole twentieth century, and are more detailed from the 1970s onwards. Our preliminary analyses show that the long-term trend in late births has been downward until the 1970s, with a clear reversal after that nadir point. The reversal however does not yet correspond to a higher share of births at “latest-late” ages. For the extreme age at birth, the long-term stability around the age of 51 years has been restored very recently, and that there are now signs of a rising extreme age.