What is the average age that women start having children in the U.S.?
Sociology of the family
In the United States, 82.5 million women are mothers of all ages, while the national average age of first child births is 25.1 years. In 2008, 10% of births were to teenage girls, and 14% were to women ages 35 and older. In the United States, a study found that the average woman spends 5 years working and building a career before having children, and mothers working non-salary jobs began having children at age 27, compared to mothers with salary positions, who became pregnant at age 31. The study shows that the difference in age of child birth is related to education, since the longer a woman has been in school, the older she will be when she enters the workforce.
Child marriage
Lower legally allowed marriage age does not necessarily cause high rates of child marriages. However, there is a correlation between restrictions placed by laws and the average age of first marriage. In the United States, per 1960 Census data, 3.5% of girls married before the age of 16, while an additional 11.9% married between 16 and 18. States with lower marriage age limits saw higher percentages of child marriages. This correlation between higher age of marriage in civil law and observed frequency of child marriages breaks down in countries with Islam as the state religion. In Islamic nations, many countries do not allow child marriage of girls under their civil code of laws. But, the state recognized Sharia religious laws and courts in all these nations have the power to override the civil code, and often do. UNICEF reports that the top five nations in the world with highest observed child marriage rates – Niger (75%), Chad (72%), Mali (71%), Bangladesh (64%), Guinea (63%) – are Islamic majority countries.
Pregnancy
In Europe, the average childbearing age has been rising continuously for some time. In Western, Northern, and Southern Europe, first-time mothers are on average 26 to 29 years old, up from 23 to 25 years at the start of the 1970s. In a number of European countries (Spain), the mean age of women at first childbirth has crossed the 30-year threshold.
Birth control movement in the United States
The birth control movement in the United States was a social reform campaign beginning in 1914 that aimed to increase the availability of contraception in the U.S. through education and legalization. The movement began in 1914 when a group of political radicals in New York City, led by Emma Goldman, Mary Dennett, and Margaret Sanger, became concerned about the hardships that childbirth and self-induced abortions brought to low-income women. Sanger, in particular, simultaneously sought to connect birth control to the organized eugenics movement, regularly appealing to the authority of eugenic scientists Karl Pearson, Charles Davenport, and others in her "Birth Control Review" from the early 1920s. Such figures sought to prevent population segments they deemed genetically 'undesirable' from reproducing. While seeking legitimacy for the birth control movement partly through the approval of organized eugenics, Sanger and other activists also worked on the political front. Since contraception was considered to be obscene at the time, the activists targeted the Comstock laws, which prohibited distribution of any "obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious" materials through the mail. Hoping to provoke a favorable legal decision, Sanger deliberately broke the law by distributing "The Woman Rebel", a newsletter containing a discussion of contraception. In 1916, Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, but the clinic was immediately shut down by police, and Sanger was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
Women's health
Child marriage (including union or cohabitation) is defined as marriage under the age of eighteen and is an ancient custom. In 2010 it was estimated that 67 million women, then, in their twenties had been married before they turned eighteen, and that 150 million would be in the next decade, equivalent to 15 million per year. This number had increased to 70 million by 2012. In developing countries one third of girls are married under age, and 1:9 before 15. The practice is commonest in South Asia (48% of women), Africa (42%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (29%). The highest prevalence is in Western and Sub-Saharan Africa. The percentage of girls married before the age of eighteen is as high as 75% in countries such as Niger (Nour, Table I). Most child marriage involves girls. For instance in Mali the ratio of girls to boys is 72:1, while in countries such as the United States the ratio is 8:1. Marriage may occur as early as birth, with the girl being sent to her husbands home as early as age seven.
Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative
As of May 2, 2018, the United States only had 512 hospitals that hold the Baby-Friendly designation. This translates to 24.57% of annual births occurring in a Baby-Friendly hospital. Mothers in the United States face prejudice regarding breastfeeding their children. The US Surgeon General reported in 2001 that 57% of U.S. adults believe that a woman should not be allowed to breastfeed in public places and not all states protect women from being charged with public indecency for breastfeeding in public. 
A study conducted by Bartick and Reinhold, determined that $10.5 billion US dollars could be saved if 80% of families in the United States were able to meet current recommendations for exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life, that cost-savings jumps to $13 billion saved if 90% of families comply. Lower income households are often eligible for Medicaid and WIC, by breastfeeding, these agencies have been estimated to save $478 during the first six months of the infant’s life for each infant.
Hutterites
The very high birth rate among the Hutterites has decreased dramatically since 1950, as they have dropped from around ten children per family in 1954 to under five in 2010 and even lower in the years since then. Hutterite fertility rates remain relatively high compared to the general North American population, but relatively low compared to other traditional Anapatist groups like the Amish or the Old Order Mennonites. While Hutterite women traditionally married around the ages of 20 or 21, marriage in the 21st century very often is delayed until the late 20s. Whereas Hutterite women traditionally had children until their mid 40s, today most Hutterite woman have their last child around the age of 35.
Reproductive rights in Latin America
In Latin America, 38% of women become pregnant before the age of 20 and almost 20% of births are to teenage mothers. Each year there are estimated to be 1.2 million unintended pregnancies among adolescent women living in Latin America and the Caribbean. Although overall fertility rates have largely dropped within the region, adolescent maternity is following an opposite trend. The Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean reports that as of 2011, in Nicaragua approximately 2 in 10 women between the ages of 15 and 19 is a mother. In places such as Chile, Mexico, Paraguay and Peru the percentage is close to 12% while in Belize, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala and El Salvador reach percentages close to 15%. Inequality is also present in the issue of adolescent maternity, with pregnancy rates being three to five times higher among poor adolescents. While an overall universal trend towards earlier average age of menstruation can be seen, the mean age of marriage has declined. This implies that adolescents who are coerced into marriage are unprotected in terms of reproductive rights for longer periods of time.
Unintended pregnancy
According to one study, over one-third of living people in the US under 31 years of age (born since 1982) were the result of unintended pregnancies, a rate that has remained largely unchanged to date.
Puberty
The first menstrual bleeding is referred to as menarche, and typically occurs about two years after thelarche. The average age of menarche is 12.5 in the United States. Most American girls experience their first period at 11, 12 or 13, but some experience it earlier than their 11th birthday and others after their 14th birthday. In fact, anytime between 8 and 16 is normal. In Canada, the average age of menarche is 12.72, and in the United Kingdom it is 12.9. The time between menstrual periods (menses) is not always regular in the first two years after menarche. Ovulation is necessary for fertility, but may or may not accompany the earliest menses. In postmenarchal girls, about 80% of the cycles were anovulatory in the first year after menarche, 50% in the third year and 10% in the sixth year. Initiation of ovulation after menarche is not inevitable. A high proportion of girls with continued irregularity in the menstrual cycle several years from menarche will continue to have prolonged irregularity and anovulation, and are at higher risk for reduced fertility.
Society of the United States
Adolescent sex is common; most Americans first have sexual intercourse in their teenage years. The current data suggests that by the time a person turns eighteen years old, slightly more than half of females and nearly two-thirds of males will have had sexual relations. More than half of sexually active teens have had sexual partners they are dating. Risky sexual behaviors that involve "anything intercourse related" are "rampant" among teenagers. Teenage pregnancies in the United States decreased 28% between 1990-2000 from 117 pregnancies per every 1,000 teens to 84 per 1,000. The United States is rated, based on 2002 estimates, 84 out of 170 countries based on teenage fertility rate, according to the World Health Organization.
Child marriage in India
The small sample surveys have different methods of estimating overall child marriages in India, some using multi-year basis data. For example, NFHS-3 data for 2005 mentioned in above table, used a survey of women aged 20–24, where they were asked if they were married before they were 18. The NFHS-3 also surveyed older women, up to the age of 49, asking the same question. The survey found that many more 40-49 were married before they turned 18, than 20-24 age women who were interviewed. In 1970s, the minimum legal age of marriage, in India, for women was 15.
Teenage pregnancy
Teenage pregnancy, also known as adolescent pregnancy, is pregnancy in a female under the age of 20. Pregnancy can occur with sexual intercourse after the start of ovulation, which can be before the first menstrual period (menarche) but usually occurs after the onset of periods. In well-nourished females, the first period usually takes place around the age of 12 or 13.
Pregnant teenagers face many of the same pregnancy related issues as other women. There are additional concerns for those under the age of 15 as they are less likely to be physically developed to sustain a healthy pregnancy or to give birth. For girls aged 15–19, risks are associated more with socioeconomic factors than with the biological effects of age. Risks of low birth weight, premature labor, anemia, and pre-eclampsia are connected to biological age, being observed in teen births even after controlling for other risk factors (such as accessing prenatal care etc.).
Teenage pregnancies are associated with social issues, including lower educational levels and poverty. Teenage pregnancy in developed countries is usually outside of marriage and carries a social stigma. Teenage pregnancy in developing countries often occurs within marriage and half are planned. However, in these societies, early pregnancy may combine with malnutrition and poor health care to cause medical problems. When used in combination, educational interventions and access to birth control can reduce unintended teenage pregnancies.
In 2015 about 47 females per 1,000 had children well under the age of 20. Rates are higher in Africa and lower in Asia. In the developing world about 2.5 million females under the age of 16 and 16 million females 15 to 19 year old have children each year. Another 3.9 million have abortions. It is more common in rural than urban areas. Worldwide, complications related to pregnancy are the most common cause of death among females 15 to 19 year old.
Age and female fertility
According to a study done on a sample of 782 healthy European couples ages 19–39, fertility starts declining after age 27 and drops at a somewhat greater rate after age 35. The women were divided into four age groups: 19–26, 27–29, 30–34 and 35–39. Statistical analysis showed that the women in the 27–29 age group had significantly less chance on average of becoming pregnant than did the 19- to 26-year-olds. Pregnancy rates did not change notably between the 27–29 age group and the 30–34 age group, but dropped significantly for the 35–39 age group. The age of the male partner had a significant impact on female fertility among the women who had reached their mid-30s, but not among the younger women. However, experts said the new study was too small and there were too many variables which were too difficult to sort out, for a clear conclusion to be drawn. Some experts suggested that the main change in fertility in the older women was the fact that it took them "longer" to conceive, not necessary that they were significantly more unlikely to eventually succeed. David Dunson, a biostatistician at the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said that: "Although we noted a decline in female fertility in the late 20s, what we found was a decrease in the probability of becoming pregnant per menstrual cycle, not in the probability of eventually achieving a pregnancy."
Women in Sierra Leone
In 2013, Sierra Leone had the 7th highest teen pregnancy rate in the world. 38% of Sierra Leonean women aged 20-24 had given birth to their first baby before the age of 18. Teenage pregnancy is a major contributing factor to Sierra Leone's high maternal mortality rate as teenage mothers have a 40%-60% risk of dying in childbed. Babies born to teenage mothers have a 50% higher risk of being stillborn or dying shortly after birth than babies born to mothers over the age of 20.
Teen marriage
Boys marry at 15 years of age or less in 10 percent of 58 societies. Another 42 percent marry between 16 and 19 years of age. Thirty-eight percent marry in their twenties, and 10 percent marry when they are 30 years of age. (Ayer) Scientists and psychologists made a discovery in 1963 that in traditional societies, boys and girls have usually begun to do serious work well before they reach puberty. Girls are often doing womanly work at a certain age: cooking, weaving, gardening, and taking care of their siblings from the age of six to the age of nine. Some girls have to do these chores at an even earlier age like three or four. Boys on the other hand, learn how to farm, herd, and hunt before they reach manhood. 
Some mothers and fathers attempt to let their children to choose their potential loved ones. However, about 70% of decisions regarding marriage of children are made by their parents. Parents who fail to marry a child at the proper age are thought to be neglecting their responsibilities. These parents usually have their reputations ruined. Across cultures, females tend to be married earlier than males. Boys are married later than girls in 85 percent of 45 cultures. In the remaining 15 percent, both sexes marry at a roughly the same age. The differential in age of marriage for males and females is from one to five years in 78 percent of 37 societies and between six and ten years in another 18 percent.According to the book of Eleanor H. Ayer, another situation that could lead teenagers to an early marriage is often unprotected sex, which could lead to a pregnancy. Other factors that also lead to marriage are love, lust, fear of losing their partner, abuse, extreme parental control, sexual harassment and step-family difficulties.
Fertility
The average age of menarche in the United States is about 12.5 years. In postmenarchal girls, about 80% of the cycles are anovulatory (ovulation does not actually take place) in the first year after menarche, 50% in the third and 10% in the sixth year.
Age of marriage in the United States
In 24 of the states, children under 16 can be married. Over the past 15 years, more than 200,000 minors married in US, and in Tennessee girls as young as 10 were married in 2001, before the state set a minimum age of 17 in 2018.
Adolescent sexuality in the United States
Each year, almost 750,000 girls aged 15–19 become pregnant. Two-thirds of all teen pregnancies occur among the oldest teens (18–21-year-olds). Of them, 82% are unplanned, accounting for about 20% of all unintended pregnancies annually. Of pregnancies among 15–19-year-olds girls in 2008, 59% ended in birth, 26% in abortion, and the rest in miscarriage. Overall, 68 pregnancies occurred per 1,000 girls aged 15–19 in 2008. Nearly 7% of 15–19-year-old girls become pregnant each year. Pregnancies are much less common among girls younger than 15. In 2008, 6.6 pregnancies occurred per 1,000 teens aged 14 or younger. In other words, fewer than 1% of teens younger than 15 become pregnant each year. Stillborn and newborn deaths are 50% higher for teen moms than women aged 20–29, and are more likely to have a low birth weight.
Gonadotropin-releasing hormone receptor
Normal puberty begins between ages 8 and 14 in girls and between 9 and 14 in boys. Puberty, however, for some children can come much sooner or much later or in many cases never occurs and thereby contributes to the estimated 35-70 million infertile couples worldwide. Among children, the abnormally early or late onset of puberty exerts intense emotional and social stress that too often goes untreated.
Women in the United States
As of 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, average age at first marriage in the United States is 27 for women and 29 for men.
As of 2014, women are 46.5% of the total United States workforce.
Work–family balance in the United States
Middle class women oftentimes delay motherhood until after the peak of their fertility at age 29–30, a delay that has become more common in the last two decades. Motherhood is delayed because of the higher educational and career aspirations middle class women oftentimes make—the career incentives are too great to pass up. While middle class women on average have children at age 29, lower class women typically have children much earlier in their lives because of the lack of incentives to delay childbirth. According to Edin and Kefalas, lower class women do not make the same delay because they are oftentimes lacking the career and educational incentives that middle class women have.
Women in the United States Virgin Islands
According to "Countries and Their Culture" there was a ratio of 1 in 3 households where the head of the family is a "single female parent", which is perhaps to an increasing rate of "unmarried teenage" pregnancies. In 1995, census data showed that there were 34% of "unmarried females" with at least an average of 2 children per family. Caring for infants is traditionally the responsibility of U.S. Virgin Islands women, which involves providing breastfeeding "supplemented by formula given in bottles"; and - in traditional households that hold on to folk beliefs - the mother would usually give the infant "bush tea" to induce sleep.
Single parent
In the United States, since the 1960s, there has been a marked increase in the number of children living with a single parent. The 1980 United States Census reported that 19.5% were single parent households. From 1980 to 2009, the percentage of single-parent households jumped to 29.5%.
The jump was caused by an increase in births to unmarried women and by the increasing prevalence of divorces among couples. In 2010, 40.7% of births in the US were to unmarried women. In 2000, 11% of children were living with parents who had never been married, 15.6% of children lived with a divorced parent, and 1.2% lived with a parent who was widowed. The results of the 2010 United States Census showed that 27% of children live with one parent, consistent with the emerging trend noted in 2000. The most recent data of December 2011 shows approximately 13.7 million single parents in the U.S. Mississippi leads the nation with the highest percent of births to unmarried mothers with 54% in 2014, followed by Louisiana, New Mexico, Florida and South Carolina.
Demographics of Guatemala
The legal age for females to get married in Guatemala is 14, with parental consent. This phenomenon, known as child marriage, is prevalent in Central America; in rural areas of Guatemala, 53% of 20 to 24 year-old women married before their 18th birthday. Once married, young girls are likely to abandon their education and are exposed to domestic and sexual violence. They are no longer seen as girls; their husbands, who are often older men, see them as servants. Frequently births are at home. Most of these women are isolated without networks of support.
Ages of consent in North America
Each U.S. state has its own age of consent, as does the District of Columbia. As of August 1, 2018, the age of consent in each state in the United States was either 16 years of age, 17 years of age, or 18 years of age. The most common age of consent is 16.
Pap test
Women should wait a few years after they first have intercourse before they start screening, and should not be screened before age 21. American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and others recommend starting screening at age 21 (since that is a few years after initial sex for most American women). Many other countries wait until age 25 or later to start screening. For instance, some parts of Great Britain start screening at age 25. ACOG's general recommendation is that people with uteruses age 30–65 have an annual well-woman examination, that they not get annual Pap tests, and that they do get Pap tests at three-year intervals.
Demography of the United States
From the decline in U.S. birth rates starting in 1958 and the introduction of the birth control pill in 1960, the Baby Boomer normal distribution curve is negatively skewed. The trend in birth rates from 1958 to 1961 show a tendency to end late in the decade at approximately 1969, thus returning to pre-WWII levels, with 12 years of rising and 12 years of declining birth rates. Pre-war birth rates were defined as anywhere between 1939 and 1941 by demographers such as the Taeuber's, Philip M. Hauser and William Fielding Ogburn.
Filicide
A 1999 U.S. Department of Justice study concluded that mothers were responsible for a higher share of children killed during infancy between 1976 and 1997 in the United States, while fathers were more likely to have been responsible for the murders of children aged eight or older. Furthermore, 52-percent of the children who were killed by their mothers (maternal filicide) were female, while 57-percent of the children who were killed by their fathers (paternal filicide) were male. Parents were responsible for 61-percent of child murders under the age of five. Sometimes, there is a combination of murder and suicide in filicide cases. On average, according to FBI statistics, 450 children are murdered by their parents each year in the United States.
Child marriage in Afghanistan
According to UNICEF, child marriage is the "formal marriage or informal union before age 18," and it affects more girls than boys. In Afghanistan, 57% of girls are married before they are 19. The most common ages for girls to get married are 15 and 16. Factors such as gender dynamics, family structure, cultural, political, and economic perceptions/ideologies all play a role in determining if a girl is married at a young age.
Women in Chile
Today, younger women are opting out of marriage and having fewer children than their predecessors. The total fertility rate as of 2015 was 1.82 children born/woman.
This is below the replacement rate of 2.1, and also lower than in previous years. A 2002 study reported that urban women averaged 2.1 children per woman, with women living in rural areas having more children, at 2.9. As of the 1990s, both urban and rural women were averaging fewer children than previously. For those women who do have children, after former president Michelle Bachelet's childcare mandates, childcare centers that provide free services are four times more numerous. Nursing mothers also have the legal right to breastfeed during the workday. Women are less likely to seek divorces and marriage annulments.
Fertility factor (demography)
In the United States, Hispanics, and African Americans have earlier and higher fertility than other racial and ethnic groups. In 2009, the teen birth rate for Hispanics between the age 15-19 was roughly 80 births per 1000 women. The teen birth rate for African Americans in 2009 was 60 births per 1000 women and 20 for non Hispanic teens (white). According to the United States census, State Health Serve and the CDC, Hispanics accounted for 23% of the birth in 2014 out of the 1,000,000 births in the United States.
Prevalence of teenage pregnancy
The U.S. teen birth rate was 53 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19 in 2002, the highest in the developed world. If all pregnancies, including those that end in abortion or miscarriage, are taken into account, the total rate in 2000 was 75.4 pregnancies per 1,000 girls. Nevada and the District of Columbia have the highest teen pregnancy rates in the U.S., while North Dakota has the lowest. Over 80% of teenage pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended; approximately one third end in abortion, one third end in spontaneous miscarriage, and one third will continue their pregnancy and keep their baby.
Teenage pregnancy
In 2001, the teenage birth rate in the U.S. was the highest in the developed world, and the teenage abortion rate is also high. In 2005 in the U.S., the majority (57%) of teen pregnancies resulted in a live birth, 27% ended in an induced abortion, and 16% in a fetal loss. The U.S. teenage pregnancy rate was at a high in the 1950s and has decreased since then, although there has been an increase in births out of wedlock. The teenage pregnancy rate decreased significantly in the 1990s; this decline manifested across all racial groups, although teenagers of African-American and Hispanic descent retain a higher rate, in comparison to that of European-Americans and Asian-Americans. The Guttmacher Institute attributed about 25% of the decline to abstinence and 75% to the effective use of contraceptives. While in 2006 the U.S. teen birth rate rose for the first time in fourteen years, it reached a historic low in 2010: 34.3 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19.
Sex differences in human physiology
Female fertility declines after age 30 and ends with the menopause. Female physical experiences vary depending on external forces such as diet, marriage patterns, culture, and other aspects. In Western nations menstruation begins to affect females at 13 and menopause starts around 51. In non-industrialized countries, on the other hand, most females begin menstruation at a later age. More lactation in the lifetime of non-western females inhibits ovulation and extends the number of fertile years. Pregnancy in the 40s or later has been correlated with increased risk of Down syndrome in the children. Males are capable of fathering children into old age. Paternal age effects in the children include multiple sclerosis, autism, breast cancer and schizophrenia, as well as reduced intelligence. Adriana Iliescu was reported as the world's oldest woman to give birth, at age 66. Her record stood until Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara gave birth to twin sons at Sant Pau Hospital in Barcelona, Spain on December 29, 2006, at the age of 67. In both cases IVF was used. The oldest known father was former Australian miner Les Colley, who fathered a child at age 93.
Cancer screening
In the United States the rate of cervical cancer is 0.1% among women under 20 years of age, so the American Cancer Society as well as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists strongly recommend that screening begin at age 21, regardless of age at sexual initiation or other risk-related behaviors. For healthy women aged 21–29 who have never had an abnormal Pap smear, cervical cancer screening with cervical cytology (Pap smear) should occur every 3 years, regardless of HPV vaccination status. The preferred screening for women aged 30–65 is "co-testing", which includes a combination of cervical cytology screening and HPV testing, every 5 years. However, it is acceptable to screen this age group with a Pap smear alone every 3 years. In women over the age of 65, screening for cervical cancer may be discontinued in the absence of abnormal screening results within the prior 10 years and no history of CIN 2 or higher.
Menarche
Fewer than 10% of U.S. girls start to menstruate before 11 years of age, and 90% of all US girls are menstruating by 13.75 years of age, with a median age of 12.43 years. This age at menarche is not much different (0.34 years earlier) than that reported for U.S. girls in 1973. Age at menarche for non-Hispanic black girls was significantly earlier than that of white girls at 10%, 25%, and 50% of those who had attained menarche, whereas Mexican American girls were only slightly earlier than the white girls at 25%.
Mother
In the United States, the TFR was estimated for 2013 at 2.06 births per woman. In 2011, the average age at first birth was 25.6 and 40.7% of births were to unmarried women.
Fear of children
While there are many families in the world, not all couples or even humans desire to have families or children. The United States Bureau of the Census conducted a study in 1971, which they say the data still seems to be the same today concerning birth rates and parent-to-child ratios. They believe it is too early to say that (increased rates of childless families) foretell a future increase of childless homes in general or just later birth. The number of married couples voluntarily choosing to be childless are only increasing. As social trends are hard to predict and therefore fertility expectations, attitudes, behaviors and such are uneasy to consistently gather data for, leaving voluntarily childlessness hard to track. There is a forum on the popular website, Reddit, where self-described childfree individuals from around the world discuss the childfree lifestyle.
Gender inequality in South Korea
As a consequence of household inequalities, South Korean women are marrying later and having fewer children. A 2007 report by Center for Strategic and International Studies notes these trends are "in many ways the worst of both worlds. Korea now has a lower fertility rate than any developed country and one of the lowest rates of female labor-force participation — 60% for women aged 25 to 54 versus 75% in the USA and 76% in the EU." The percentage of Korean women who say it is “necessary” to have children declined from 90% in 1991 to 58% in 2000. In 1970, the average age of first marriage for females was 23; by 2005 it was almost 28. The report shows that traditional Korean family and workplace cultures must change in order to prevent serious economic and societal problems due to extremely low fertility rates.
Teenage pregnancy
In the U.S., according to the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, sexually active adolescent women wishing to avoid pregnancy were less likely than older women to use contraceptives (18% of 15–19-year-olds used no contraceptives, versus 10.7% for women aged 15–44). More than 80% of teen pregnancies are unintended. Over half of unintended pregnancies were to women not using contraceptives, most of the rest are due to inconsistent or incorrect use. 23% of sexually active young women in a 1996 "Seventeen" magazine poll admitted to having had unprotected sex with a partner who did not use a condom, while 70% of girls in a 1997 "PARADE" poll claimed it was embarrassing to buy birth control or request information from a doctor.
Demography of the United States
Per U.S. federal government data released in March 2011, births fell 4% from 2007 to 2009, the largest drop in the U.S. for any two-year period since the 1970s.
Births have declined for three consecutive years, and are now 7% below the peak in 2007. This drop has continued through 2010, according to data released by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics in June 2011. Numerous experts have suggested that this decline is largely a reflection of unfavorable economic conditions. This connection between birth rates and economic downturns partly stems from the fact that American birth rates have now fallen to levels that are comparable to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Teen birth rates in the U.S. are at the lowest level in U.S. history. In fact, teen birth rates in the U.S. have consistently decreased since 1991 through 2011, except for a brief increase between 2005 and 2007. The other aberration from this otherwise steady decline in teen birth rates is the 6% decrease in birth rates for 15- to 19-year-olds between 2008 and 2009. Despite these years of decrease, U.S. teen birth rates are still higher than in other developed nations. Racial differences prevail with teen birth and pregnancy rates as well. The American Indian/Alaska Native, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic black teen pregnancy rates are more than double the non-Hispanic white teen birth rate.
Sterilization (medicine)
Because of the emphasis placed on childbearing as the most important role of women, not having children was traditionally seen as a deficiency or due to fertility problems. However, access to contraception and abortion, new economic and educational opportunities, and changing ideas about motherhood have led to new reproductive experiences for women in the United States, particularly for women who choose to be childless. Scholars define "voluntarily childless" women as "women of childbearing age who are fertile and state that they do not intend to have children, women of childbearing age who have chosen sterilization, or women past childbearing age who were fertile but chose not to have children." 
In industrialized countries such as the United Kingdom, those of Western Europe, and the United States, the fertility rate has declined below or near the population replacement rate of two children per woman. Women are having children at a later age, and most notably, an increasing number of women are choosing not to bear children at all. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, 46% of women aged 15 to 44 were childless in June 2008 compared to 35% of childless women in 1976. The personal freedoms of a childless lifestyle and the ability to focus on other relationships were common motivations underlying the decision to be voluntarily childless. Such personal freedoms included increased autonomy and improved financial positions. The couple could engage in more spontaneous activities because they didn't need a babysitter or to consult with someone else. Women had more time to devote to their careers and hobbies. Regarding other relationships, some women chose to forgo children because they wanted to maintain the "type of intimacy that they found fulfilling" with their partners. Although voluntary childlessness was a joint decision for many couples, "studies have found that women were more often the primary decision makers. There is also some evidence that when one partner (either male or female) was ambivalent, a strong desire not to have children on the side of the other partner was often the deciding factor." 'Not finding a suitable partner at an appropriate time in life" was another deciding factor, particularly for ambivalent women.
Prevalence of teenage pregnancy
By contrast, teenage parents in developing regions such as Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific Islands (in some civilizations) are often married, and their pregnancy may be welcomed by family and society. However, in these societies, early pregnancy may combine with malnutrition and poor health care to cause medical problems. A report by Save the Children found that, annually, 13 million children are born to women under age 20 worldwide. More than 90% of these births occur to women living in developing countries. Complications of pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of mortality among women between the ages of 15 and 19 in such areas, as they are the leading cause of mortality among older women.
Voluntary childlessness
Being a childfree American adult was considered unusual in the 1950s. However, the proportion of childless adults in the population has increased significantly since then. The proportion of childlessness among women aged 40-44 was 10% in 1976, reached a high of 20% in 2005, then declined to 15% in 2014. In Europe, childlessness among women aged 40-44 is most common in Austria, Spain and the United Kingdom (in 2010-2011). Childlessness is least common across Eastern European countries, although one child families are very common there.
Demographic history of the United States
According to statistics, the United States currently has the highest marriage rate in the developed world, as of 2008, with a marriage rate of 7.1 per 1,000 people or 2,162,000 marriages. The average age for first marriage for men is 27.4 and 25.6 years for women. The United States also has one of the highest proportions of people who do marry by age 40; approximately 85% Americans are married at 40, compared to only 60% in Sweden.
Premarital sex
A majority of Americans have had premarital sex, according to a 2007 article in Public Health Reports. This is true for current young adults and also young adults in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Data from the National Survey of Family Growth indicate that in 2002, 77% of Americans had sex by age 20, and of that percent, 75% had premarital sex. In comparison, of women who turned 15 between 1964 and 1993, approximately 91% had premarital sex by age 30. Of women who turned 15 between 1954 and 1963, 82% of them had had premarital sex by age 30. Additionally, when comparing the General Social Survey of 1988–1996 to the one of 2004–2012, researchers found that participants of 2004–2012 did not report more sexual partners since the age of 18, nor more frequent sex or sex partners during the past year than those respondents of the 1988-1996 survey. Furthermore, there appears to be no substantial change in sexual behavior contrasting the earlier era to the current one. However, current-era respondents were more likely to report having sex with a casual date or friend than reporting having sex with a spouse or regular partner. From 1943 to 1999, attitudes toward premarital sex changed such that young women’s approval increased from 12% to 73% and from 40% to 79% among young men. People’s feelings of sexual guilt also decreased during this period. As of 2005, less than 25% of people believe premarital sex is “always or almost always” wrong.
Family planning
About 3 out of 10 women in the United States have an abortion by the time they are 45 years old.
Pregnancy
This process is not restricted to Europe. Asia, Japan and the United States are all seeing average age at first birth on the rise, and increasingly the process is spreading to countries in the developing world like China, Turkey and Iran. In the US, the average age of first childbirth was 25.4 in 2010.
Voluntary childlessness
From 2007 to 2011 the fertility rate in the U.S. declined 9%, the Pew Research Center reporting in 2010 that the birth rate was the lowest in U.S. history and that childfreeness rose across all racial and ethnic groups to about 1 in 5 versus 1 in 10 in the 1970s. The CDC released statistics in the first quarter of 2016 confirming that the U.S. fertility rate had fallen to its lowest point since record keeping started in 1909: 59.8 births per 1,000 women, half its high of 122.9 in 1957. Even taking the falling fertility rate into account, the U.S. Census Bureau still projected that the U.S. population would increase from 319 million (2014) to 400 million by 2051.
Claudia Goldin
Goldin co-authored this article with Lawrence F. Katz. Goldin and Katz look into the transition of women getting married and bearing children at an older age, while becoming more educated and entering the workforce. Beginning in the 1970s, a surge of women began pursuing careers and foregoing getting married and having children in their early 20s. The median age at first marriage among college graduate women, which had been stable at about 22.5 years old from the 1950s to the early 1970s (for birth cohorts from the 1930s to about 1950), increased by 2.5 years between 1972 and 1979 (for birth cohorts from about 1950 to 1955). The fraction of women not having a first birth by around 40 years old increased from 20 percent for those graduating in the early 1960s, to 28 percent for those graduating in the 1970s. College graduate women greatly increased their education in professional schools; the fraction female among first-year law and medical school students, for example, was 10 percent in 1970 but rose to 40 percent by 1990. Goldin provides a detailed account of women at Harvard University in the years 1970, 1980, and 1990 within the study. It showed a great increase in the percentage of female students, and a significant decrease in the percentage of female students who were married two years after receiving their degree. Though more female students entered the University, and they did not get married right away, the percentage of the female graduates who work full-time, full year from the 1990 class is 1.7 percent lower than those from 1970.
Epidemiology of childhood obesity
For the 2015–2016 year, the CDC found that the prevalence of obesity for children aged 2-19 years old, in the U.S., was 18.5%. The current trends show that children aged 12-19 years old, have obesity levels 2.2% higher than children 6-11 years old (20.6% vs. 18.4%), and children 6-11 years old have obesity levels 4.5% higher than children aged 2-5 years old (18.4% vs. 13.9%). Boys, 6-19 years old, have a 6.1% higher prevalence of obesity, than boys aged 2-5 years old (20.4% vs. 14.3%). While girls aged 12-19 years old, have a 7.4% greater prevalence of obesity, than girls aged 2-5 years old (20.9% vs. 13.5%).
Marriage in the United States
Marriage in the United States is a legal, social, and religious institution. The legal recognition of marriage is regulated by individual states, each of which sets an "age of majority" at which individuals are free to enter into marriage solely on their own consent, as well as at what ages underage persons are able to marry with parental and/or judicial consent. Marriage laws have changed considerably during United States history, including the removal of bans on interracial marriage and same-sex marriage. In 2009, there were 2,077,000 marriages, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The median age for the first marriage has increased in recent years. The median age in the early 1970s was 23 for men and 21 for women; and it rose to 28 for men and 26 for women by 2009 and by 2017, it was 29.5 for men and 27.4 for women.
Child marriage
According to Population Council, 35% of all females in Pakistan become mothers before they reach the age of 18, and 67% have experienced pregnancy – 69% of these have given birth – before they reach the age of 19. Less than 4% of married girls below the age of 19 had some say in choosing her spouse; over 80% were married to a near or distant relative. Child marriage and early motherhood is common in Pakistan.
Pregnancy options counseling in the United States
Pregnancy options counseling is a form of counseling to help a woman come to a decision regarding a troubling or unintended pregnancy. In the United States, approximately 51% of the six million annual pregnancies are unintended. A majority of the women affected by an unintended pregnancy are aged 20–24, poor or low income, or a member of a minority group. Unintended pregnancy rates are generally higher in the South and Southwest regions of the United States and densely populated areas. A lack of family planning, limited access to birth control, and inconsistent use of birth control are three of the contributing factors to unintended pregnancy.
Marriage in the United States
The United States Supreme Court has in at least 15 cases since 1888 ruled that marriage is a fundamental right. These cases are:The age at which a person can marry varies by state. The marriage age is generally 18 years, with the exception of Nebraska (19) and Mississippi (21). In addition, all states, except Delaware, allow minors to marry in certain circumstances, such as parental consent, judicial consent, pregnancy, or a combination of these situations. Most states allow minors aged 16 and 17 to marry with parental consent alone. 30 states have set an absolute minimum age by statute, which varies between 13 and 18, while in 20 states there is no statutory minimum age if other legal conditions are met. In states with no set minimum age, the traditional common law minimum age is 14 for boys and 12 for girls - ages which have been confirmed by case law in some states. Over the past 15 years, more than 200,000 minors married in the US, and in Tennessee a 10-year-old girl was married in 2001, before the state finally set a minimum age of 17 in 2018.
Teenage pregnancy
In other countries, such as the U.S. and Ireland, the majority of teenage mothers are not married to the father of their children. In the UK, half of all teenagers with children are lone parents, 40% are cohabitating as a couple and 10% are married. Teenage parents are frequently in a romantic relationship at the time of birth, but many adolescent fathers do not stay with the mother and this often disrupts their relationship with the child. U.S. surveys tend to under-report the prevalence of teen fatherhood.
In many cases, "teenage father" may be a misnomer. Studies by the Population Reference Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics found that about two-thirds of births to teenage girls in the U.S. are fathered by adult men aged over 20. The Guttmacher Institute reports that over 40% of mothers aged 15–17 had sexual partners three to five years older and almost one in five had partners six or more years older. A 1990 study of births to California teens reported that the younger the mother, the greater the age gap with her male partner. In the UK 72% of jointly registered births to women aged under 20, the father is over 20, with almost 1 in 4 being over 25.
Women in Ghana
The birthrate for adolescents (aged 15–19) in Ghana is 60 per 1000 women. The rates between rural and urban areas of the country, however, vary greatly (89 and 33 per 1000 women, respectively). For urban women, 2.3% of women have a child before age 15 and 16.7% of women have a child before the age 18. For rural women, 4% have a child before age 15 and 25% have a child before age 18. There have been organizations that have helped with the issue of maternal health, such as the United Nations and the Accelerated Child Survival Development Program. Both fought against abortions, and reduced about 50 percent of the child and maternal mortality rates.
Women in Ivory Coast
2005 estimates are that the average Ivorian woman gives birth to 4.73 children, and 690 women per 100,000 die in childbirth. While maternal mortality and fertility rates are declining, they are far above those of developed countries. Child mortality has in fact increased since 1990, with 101.3 children of every 1000 live birth dying before age five in 2005, an increase from 97.2 in 1990. 43.5 percent of women are married by the age of 18 (median: 19.8 for women, 27.6 for men), while the median age at first sexual intercourse for women is 16.1 years. 115.6 per 1000 women age 15–20 have given birth. Only 53 percent of women 15–24 know that condom use can protect them from HIV.
Colonial history of the United States
When married, an English woman gave up her maiden name. The role of wives was to raise and nurture healthy children and support their husbands. Most women carried out these duties. During the 18th century, couples usually married between the ages of 20-24, and 6-8 children were typical of a family, with three on average surviving to adulthood. Farm women provided most of the materials needed by the rest of the family by spinning yarn from wool and knitting sweaters and stockings, making candles and soap from ashes, and churning milk into butter.
Most New England parents tried to help their sons establish farms of their own. When sons married, fathers gave them gifts of land, livestock, or farming equipment; daughters received household goods, farm animals, or cash. Arranged marriages were very unusual; normally, children chose their own spouses from within a circle of suitable acquaintances who shared their race, religion, and social standing. Parents retained veto power over their children's marriages.
Interracial adoption
Interracial adoption grew significantly from 1999 to 2005 where it reached its peak year at 585 adoptions to the United States. Following 2005, interracial adoption into the US declined with 288 adoptions in the year 2011. From 1999 to 2011, there has been 233,934 adoptions into the United States from other countries across the globe. Of the total adoptions, 39.4% (92,202 children) were under the age of 12 months. Also, 63% (146,516 children) were female. Overall, children from China were the most common to be adopted. 66,630 were from China and Russia was the second largest country with 45,112 children.
Age of consent
In the United States, as late as the 1880s most states set the minimum age at ten to twelve (in Delaware, it was seven in 1895). Inspired by the "Maiden Tribute" articles, female reformers in the U.S. initiated their own campaign, which petitioned legislators to raise the legal minimum age to at least sixteen, with the ultimate goal to raise the age to eighteen. The campaign was successful, with almost all states raising the minimum age to sixteen to eighteen years by 1920.
Homosexuality and psychology
In the 2000 U.S. Census, 33% of female same-sex couple households and 22% of male same-sex couple households reported at least one child under eighteen living in their home. Some children do not know they have an LGBT parent; coming out issues vary and some parents may never come out to their children. adoption by LGBT couples and LGBT parenting in general may be controversial in some countries. In January 2008, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that same-sex couples have the right to adopt a child. In the U.S., LGBT people can legally adopt, as individuals, in all fifty states.
Virginity
Some studies suggest that people commence sexual activity at an earlier age than previous generations. However, the 2005 Durex Global sex survey found that people worldwide are having sex for the first time at an average age of 17.3, ranging from 15.6 in Iceland to 19.8 in India (though evidence has shown that the average age is not a good indicator of sexual initiation, and that percentages of sexually initiated youth at each age are preferred). A 2008 survey of UK teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 (conducted by YouGov for Channel 4), showed that only 6% of these teenagers intended to wait until marriage before having sex. According to a 2011 CDC study, in the 15-to-19-year-old age group 43 percent of males and 48 percent of females in the United States reported never having an opposite-sex partner.
Birth rate
In July 2011, the U.S. National Institutes of Health announced that the adolescent birth rate continues to decline. In 2013, teenage birth rates in the U.S. were at the lowest level in U.S. history. Teen birth rates in the U.S. have decreased from 1991 through 2012 (except for an increase from 2005–2007). The other aberration from this otherwise-steady decline in teen birth rates is the six percent decrease in birth rates for 15- to 19-year-olds between 2008 and 2009. Despite the decrease, U.S. teen birth rates remain higher than those in other developed nations. Racial differences affect teen birth and pregnancy rates: American Indian/Alaska Native, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic black teen pregnancy rates are more than double the non-Hispanic white teenage birth rate.
Teenage pregnancy
According to a 2001 UNICEF survey, in 10 out of 12 developed nations with available data, more than two thirds of young people have had sexual intercourse while still in their teens. In Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Norway, the UK and the U.S., the proportion is over 80%. In Australia, the UK and the U.S., approximately 25% of 15-year-olds and 50% of 17-year-olds have had sex. According to "The Encyclopedia of Women's Health", published in 2004, approximately 15 million girls under the age of 20 in the world have a child each year. Estimates were that 20–60% of these pregnancies in developing countries are mistimed or unwanted.
Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia
Between 250,000 and 1 million American women are diagnosed with CIN annually. Women can develop CIN at any age, however women generally develop it between the ages of 25 to 35. The estimated annual incidence of CIN in the United States among persons who undergo screening is 4% for CIN 1 and 5% for CIN 2 and CIN 3.
Anchor baby
Statistics show that a significant, and rising, number of undocumented immigrants are having children in the United States, but there is mixed evidence that acquiring citizenship for the parents is their goal. According to PolitFact, the immigration benefits of having a child born in the United States are limited. Citizen children cannot sponsor parents for entry into the country until they are 21 years of age, and if the parent had ever been in the country illegally, they would have to show they had left and not returned for at least ten years; however, pregnant and nursing mothers could receive food vouchers through the federal WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program and enroll the children in Medicaid.
Demography of the United States
The United States Census Bureau shows a population increase of 0.75% for the twelve-month period ending in July 2012. Though high by industrialized country standards, this is below the world average annual rate of 1.1%. The total fertility rate in the United States estimated for 2017 is 1.77 children per woman, which is below the replacement fertility rate of approximately 2.1.
Breastfeeding promotion
Each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention release a Breastfeeding Report Card, detailing breastfeeding rates and promotion programs nationally and in all fifty states. In 2013, 76.5% of US women had ever breastfed their children; 16.4% exclusively breastfed up to six months of age. The Healthy People 2020 target for exclusive breastfeeding at six months is 25.5%. The proportion of infants who were breastfed exclusively or non-exclusively at six months was 35% in 2000 and increased to 49% by 2010.
Birth rate
The United States population growth is at an historical low level as the United States current birth rates are the lowest ever recorded. The low birth rates in the contemporary United States can possibly be ascribed to the recession, which led women to postpone having children and fewer immigrants coming to the US. The current US birth rates are not high enough to maintain the size of the U.S. population, according to The Economist.
Prevalence of teenage pregnancy
In 2013, the teenage birth rate in the United States reached a historic low: 26.6 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19. More than three-quarters of these births are to adult women aged 18 or 19. In 2005 in the U.S., the majority (57%) of teen pregnancies resulted in a live birth, 27% ended in an induced abortion, and 16% in a fetal loss.
Total fertility rate
The total fertility rate in the US after World War II peaked at about 3.8 children per woman in the late 1950s and by 1999 was at 2 children. The fertility rate of the total US population was just below the replacement level in 1979. The fertility of the population of the United States is currently below replacement among those native born, and above replacement among immigrant families, most of whom come to the U.S. from countries with higher fertility than that of the U.S. However, the fertility rates of immigrants to the U.S. have been found to decrease sharply in the second generation, correlating with improved education and income. As of the beginning of 2016, there are 59.8 births per 1,000 women aged 15–44; this is the lowest number since records have been kept since 1909.Dynamics:
Female infertility
A woman's fertility is affected by her age. The average age of a girl's first period (menarche) is 12-13 (12.5 years in the United States, 12.72 in Canada, 12.9 in the UK), but, in postmenarchal girls, about 80% of the cycles are anovulatory in the first year after menarche, 50% in the third and 10% in the sixth year. A woman's fertility peaks in the early and mid 20s, after which it starts to decline, with this decline being accelerated after age 35. However, the exact estimates of the chances of a woman to conceive after a certain age are not clear, with research giving differing results. The chances of a couple to successfully conceive at an advanced age depend on many factors, including the general health of a woman and the fertility of the male partner.
Advanced maternal age
Having children later was not exceptional in the past, when families were larger and women often continued bearing children until the end of their reproductive age. What is so radical about this recent transformation is that it is the age at which women give birth to their first child which is becoming comparatively high, leaving an ever more constricted window of biological opportunity for second and subsequent children, should they be desired. Unsurprisingly, high first-birth ages and high rates of birth postponement are associated with the arrival of low, and lowest-low fertility.
Menstruation
The first menstrual period occurs after the onset of pubertal growth, and is called menarche. The average age of menarche is 12 to 15. However, it may start as early as eight. The average age of the first period is generally later in the developing world, and earlier in the developed world. The average age of menarche has changed little in the United States since the 1950s.
Western European marriage pattern
So many Englishmen began migrating en masse to North America that the marriage prospects for unmarried Englishwomen dwindled and the average age of first marriage rose for Englishwomen. In addition, there was a sharp rise in the percentage of women who remained unmarried and thus decreased fertility; an Englishwoman marrying at the average age of 26 years in the late 17th century who survived her childbearing years would bear an average of 5.03 children while an Englishwoman making a comparable marriage in the early 19th century at the average age of 23.5 years and surviving her childbearing years would bear on average 6.02 children, an increase of about 20 percent.
Sex-selective abortion
In a 2005 study, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported sex ratio at birth in the United States from 1940 over 62 years. This statistical evidence suggested the following: For mothers having their first baby, the total sex ratio at birth was 106 overall, with some years at 107. For mothers having babies after the first, this ratio consistently decreased with each additional baby from 106 towards 103. The age of the mother affected the ratio: the overall ratio was 105 for mothers aged 25 to 35 at the time of birth; while mothers who were below the age of 15 or above 40 had babies with a sex ratio ranging between 94 and 111, and a total sex ratio of 104. This United States study also noted that American mothers of Hawaiian, Filipino, Chinese, Cuban and Japanese ethnicity had the highest sex ratio, with years as high as 114 and average sex ratio of 107 over the 62-year study period. Outside of United States, European nations with extensive birth records, such as Finland, report similar variations in birth sex ratios over a 250-year period, that is from 1751 to 1997 AD.
Edwards syndrome
Edwards syndrome occurs in about one in 5,000 live births, but more conceptions are affected by the syndrome because the majority of those diagnosed with the condition prenatally will not survive to birth. Although women in their 20s and early 30s may conceive babies with Edwards syndrome, the risk of conceiving a child with it increases with a woman's age. The average maternal age for conceiving a child with this disorder is 32½.
Birth control movement in the United States
The practice of birth control was common throughout the U.S. prior to 1914, when the movement to legalize contraception began. Longstanding techniques included the rhythm method, withdrawal, diaphragms, contraceptive sponges, condoms, prolonged breastfeeding, and spermicides. Use of contraceptives increased throughout the nineteenth century, contributing to a 50 percent drop in the fertility rate in the United States between 1800 and 1900, particularly in urban regions. The only known survey conducted during the nineteenth century of American women's contraceptive habits was performed by Clelia Mosher from 1892 to 1912. The survey was based on a small sample of upper-class women, and shows that most of the women used contraception (primarily douching, but also withdrawal, rhythm, condoms and pessaries) and that they viewed sex as a pleasurable act that could be undertaken without the goal of procreation.
Child marriage in India
Girls who marry earlier in life are less likely to be informed about reproductive issues, and because of this, pregnancy-related deaths are known to be the leading cause of mortality among married girls between 15 and 19 years of age. These girls are twice more likely to die in childbirth than girls between 20 and 24 years of age. Girls younger than 15 years of age are 5 times more likely to die in childbirth.
Viola Klein
The authors separate a woman's adulthood into three phases. The first one is a step that lasts around 7–10 years in European countries and 5 years in the USA. It corresponds to the first years in adulthood, after school but before marriage. Only a few will stay in this phase corresponding to women who don't get married. In European countries 82% of women in this phase were working whereas it fell down to 51% in the USA. In this phase women are living a kind of “man’s life” before their marriage; they are independent.
When getting married the second phase of woman's adulthood begins, motherhood. Due to child rearing, the home becomes their workplace. The weekly work load for a housewife rises depending on the number of children: an average of 56 hrs with no children and up to 78 hrs for three. The crucial fact described is that for working women the weekly work load in both spheres is 84 hrs with no children and 85 hrs with three, which goes to show the result of the combined strain of both spheres of life. Afterwards women enter the third phase of adulthood, when their children grow up and leave home. A period of crisis can follow, the housewife is now alone, she does not have as much to do at home as before and looking for a job at 40 is complicated. “The traditional stereotype is still at work in the minds of women themselves, making them believe that they are much older and much less capable than they in fact are” (p. 40).
Menarche
Girls experience menarche at different ages. The timing of menarche is influenced by female biology, as well as genetic and environmental factors, especially nutritional factors. The mean age of menarche has declined over the last century, but the magnitude of the decline and the factors responsible remain subjects of contention. The worldwide average age of menarche is very difficult to estimate accurately, and it varies significantly by geographical region, race, ethnicity and other characteristics. Various estimates have placed it at 13. Some estimates suggest that the "median" age of menarche worldwide is 14, and that there is a later age of onset in Asian populations compared to the West. The average age of menarche is about 12.5 years in the United States, 12.72 in Canada, and 12.9 in the UK. A study of girls in Istanbul, Turkey, found the median age at menarche to be 12.74 years.
Child marriage in South Sudan
The common age range of children who are forced into marriage is from fifteen years old to eighteen years old. Many children are married off under the age of fifteen. In South Sudan, a child is someone who is not capable of having children. Therefore, a child who has begun her menstrual cycle, puberty, and can produce children is an adult. The discrepancy of what a child is, considered to be is a problem today. Families in South Sudan do not allow their children to marry men from other tribes, due to the significance of the symbolism and traditional aspects of the culture. A girls value depends on her age. This means that the younger in age the women is the, higher her value increases. This makes it easier for the girl to be married off. The older the women is the more difficult it is for her to find marriage. The older a women gets the less value she is to a marriage.
Age of marriage in the United States
33 states have an absolute minimum age for marriage, even when exemptions are included, set by statute. This age varies between 14 and 18.
Adolescent sexuality in the United States
The average age of first sexual intercourse in the United States is around 18 for males and around 17 for females, and this has been rising in recent years. For those teens who have had sex, 70% of girls and 56% of boys said that their first sexual experience was with a steady partner, while 16% of girls and 28% of boys report losing their virginity to someone they had just met or who was just a friend.
Feminism in India
Most of the average Indian woman's life is spent in marriage; many women are still married before the legal age of 18, and the incidence of non-marriage is low in India. Childbearing and raising children are the priorities of early adulthood for Indian women. Thus, if they enter the workforce at all, it is far later than Indian men. Urban Indian men reach the peak of their labour force participation between the ages of 25 and 29, while urban Indian women do so between the ages of 40 and 44. Because of this, women have less time for the acquisition of skills and fewer opportunities for job improvements.
Unintended pregnancy
Over 92% of abortions are the result of unintended pregnancy, unintended pregnancies result in about 800,000 abortions/year. In 2001, 44% of unintended pregnancies resulted in births, and 42% resulted in induced abortion and the rest in miscarriage. It is estimated that more than half of US women have had an unintended pregnancy by age 45. The U.S. states with the highest levels of abortions performed were Delaware, New York and New Jersey, with rates of 40, 38 and 31 per 1,000 women, respectively. High rates were also seen in the states of Maryland, California, Florida, Nevada and Connecticut with rates of 25 to 29 per 1,000 women. The state with the lowest abortion rate was Wyoming, which had less than 1 per 1,000 women, followed by Mississippi, Kentucky, South Dakota, Idaho and Missouri with rates of 5 to 6 abortions per 1,000 women.
Women in Japan
There is continuing debate about the role women's education plays in Japan's declining birthrate. Japan's total fertility rate is 1.4 children born per woman (2015 estimate), which is below the replacement rate of 2.1. Japanese women have their first child at an average age of 30.3 (2012 estimate).
Child marriage in the United States
Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, and its people are American citizens. The general age of marriage in Puerto Rico is 21, however males aged 18 and females aged 16 can marry with exceptions. In Guam, the general age is 18, but 16-year-olds can get married with the consent of at least one parent or guardian. In American Samoa, since 2018, the marriage age is 18 for both sexes; in September 2018, governor Lolo Moliga signed into law a bill changing the marriage age for girls from 14 to 18. In the District of Columbia the general age is 18, but 16-year-olds may marry with exceptions. In the U.S. Virgin Islands the age of marriage is 14 for females and 16 for males. In the Northern Mariana Islands males must be 18 to marry, while females can marry at 16 with parental consent.
Miskito people
Women usually begin forming relationships at age 15, and most become mothers by 18. Most women have six to eight children with their husband, but since men are not around that often there are high abandonment and divorce rates. Men often feel no moral obligation to take care of children because of a high illegitimacy rate. Abandoned children are generally adopted by women within the child's matrilocal group and taken care of by an aunt or grandmother. As women become older they also gain status within their community. In each society women who are respected elders, "kukas", are considered local experts and enforcers of correct behavior in their village.
Age and female fertility
The average age of a young woman's first period (menarche) is 12 to 13 (12.5 years in the United States, 12.72 in Canada, 12.9 in the UK) but, in postmenarchal girls, about 80% of the cycles are anovulatory in the first year after menarche, 50% in the third and 10% in the sixth year. A woman's fertility peaks in her early and mid-20s after which it starts to decline. However, the exact estimates of the chances of a woman to conceive after a certain age are not clear, and are subject to debate.
Marriageable age
The American colonies followed the English tradition, but the law was more of a guide. For example, Mary Hathaway (Virginia, 1689) was only 9 when she was married to William Williams. Sir Edward Coke (England, 17th century) made it clear that "the marriage of girls under 12 was normal, and the age at which a girl who was a wife was eligible for a dower from her husband's estate was 9 even though her husband be only four years old". Reliable data for when people would actually marry are very difficult to find. In England, for example, the only reliable data on age at marriage in the early modern period come from records relating only to those who left property after their death. Not only were the records relatively rare, but not all bothered to record the participants' ages, and it seems that the more complete the records are, the more likely they are to reveal young marriages, giving a biased sample. Additionally, 20th- and 21st-century historians have sometimes shown reluctance to accept data regarding a young age of marriage, and would instead explain the data away as a misreading by a later copier of the records.
Child marriage in the United States
The general age of marriage is 18 in every state, with the exception of Nebraska (19) and Mississippi (21).
Work–family balance in the United States
The delay in fertility becomes a problem among middle class women when they delay childbirth past their fertility peak. Since fertility peaks at a certain age, pushing childbirth past that age significantly decreases the probability that certain women will be able to have children. The media has been an influence on women's fertility choices: popular celebrities who have managed to have children well into their forties and other medical miracles covered in the media oftentimes give women false hope that they themselves will also be able to bear children later in life. For every success story, however, there are many more disappointments.
Sexual intercourse
Concerning United States data, tabulations by the National Center for Health Statistics report that the age of first sexual intercourse was 17.1 years for both males and females in 2010. The CDC stated that 45.5 percent of girls and 45.7 percent of boys had engaged in sexual activity by 19 in 2002; in 2011, reporting their research from 2006–2010, they stated that 43% of American unmarried teenage girls and 42% of American unmarried teenage boys have ever engaged in sexual intercourse. The CDC also reports that American girls will most likely lose their virginity to a boy who is 1 to 3 years older than they are. Between 1988 and 2002, the percentage of people in the U.S. who had sexual intercourse between the ages of 15 to 19 fell from 60 to 46 percent for never-married males, and from 51 to 46 percent for never-married females.
Child marriage in India
According to 2011 nationwide census of India, the average age of marriage for women in India is 21.2. In the age group 15-19, 69.6% of all women surveyed in India had never been married.
19 Kids and Counting
Arnold Hamilton of "The Dallas Morning News" described "19 Kids and Counting" as "part "Little House on the Prairie," part "Yours, Mine & Ours"–except the only blending in this real-life family occurs with restaurant like precision at mealtimes." He described the Duggars as acting "against the trend", considering the 2002 US Census found that only 0.3 percent of women ages 15 to 44 have given birth to seven or more children and that this number has declined steadily since 1976.
Sexual intercourse
In 2005, the World Health Organization estimated that 123 million women become pregnant worldwide each year, and around 87 million of those pregnancies or 70.7% are unintentional. Approximately 46 million pregnancies per year reportedly end in induced abortion. Approximately 6 million U.S. women become pregnant per year. Out of known pregnancies, two-thirds result in live births and roughly 25% in abortions; the remainder end in miscarriage. However, many more women become pregnant and miscarry without even realizing it, instead mistaking the miscarriage for an unusually heavy menstruation. The U.S. teenage pregnancy rate fell by 27 percent between 1990 and 2000, from 116.3 pregnancies per 1,000 girls aged 15–19 to 84.5. This data includes live births, abortions, and fetal losses. Almost 1 million American teenage women, 10% of all women aged 15–19 and 19% of those who report having had intercourse, become pregnant each year.
Legalized abortion and crime effect
Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago and John Donohue of Yale University revived discussion of this claim with their 2001 paper "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime". Donohue and Levitt point to the fact that males aged 18 to 24 are most likely to commit crimes. Data indicates that crime in the United States started to decline in 1992. Donohue and Levitt suggest that the absence of unwanted children, following legalization in 1973, led to a reduction in crime 18 years later, starting in 1992 and dropping sharply in 1995. These would have been the peak crime-committing years of the unborn children.
Adoption
Infertility is the main reason parents seek to adopt children they are not related to. One study shows this accounted for 80% of unrelated infant adoptions and half of adoptions through foster care. Estimates suggest that 11–24% of Americans who cannot conceive or carry to term attempt to build a family through adoption, and that the overall rate of ever-married American women who adopt is about 1.4%. Other reasons people adopt are numerous although not well documented. These may include wanting to cement a new family following divorce or death of one parent, compassion motivated by religious or philosophical conviction, to avoid contributing to overpopulation out of the belief that it is more responsible to care for otherwise parent-less children than to reproduce, to ensure that inheritable diseases (e.g., Tay–Sachs disease) are not passed on, and health concerns relating to pregnancy and childbirth. Although there are a range of possible reasons, the most recent study of experiences of women who adopt suggests they are most likely to be 40–44 years of age, currently married, have impaired fertility, and childless.