First time Dutch mothers are getting older, but 80% have kids

The average age at which women in the Netherlands have their first child has risen slightly again, to 30.4 years, national statistics agency CBS said on Wednesday.

In the early 1970s, the average age for new mothers was 24.3, but it has risen steadily since 2004 and passed 30 in 2021. First-time fathers are on average 2.5 years older than first-time mothers.

Dutch women have children relatively late compared with other European countries. In Italy, Ireland, Spain, Luxembourg and Greece, the average age of a first-time mother is at least 31.

Last year, 77,000 women in the Netherlands became mothers for the first time and 166,000 babies were born — both figures slightly up on 2023.

On average, women have 1.43 children, a figure that has been falling since 2010, apart from a brief upturn in 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic.

Some four in five women in the Netherlands eventually have children of their own.