Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have children: study

Re:Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have childr... by logicchains on Thursday August 31, 2023 @10:43AM (#37337940)

A lot of it is explained by rising marriage ages. Women lose the ability to have children at around 40, so the later they get married, the less chance they have of having children, even if all other things are equal. E.g. if we assume an even chance of having children per year, then we'd expect an increase of the average marriage age from 32 to 36 to halve the birth rate (as in the former there are 8 years in which the woman could give birth, while in the latter there are only 4).

This means that even if people's biological fertility and desire to have children didn't change at all, people delaying marriage to later in life would still potentially result in a big drop in the number of children born.

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Re:Third of Japan's 18-year-olds women may never have childr... by a0-prw on Friday September 01, 2023 @03:46AM (#37347899)

This is a good point. The average age of menopause in the US is, however, 51, not 40. That does not undermine your argument in principle, though.

Probably, a woman's chance of getting pregnant decreases the older she is, even if she is still menstruating. That would complicate the numbers but would not contradict your argument.

This is why a province in China is offering a cash bonus to couples who marry before the woman is 25.

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