More people are becoming parents at older ages, and they are confronting a new and often surprising financial reality.
Some are shouldering the costs of raising children while trying to turbocharge their retirement savings or manage age-related health problems. Others are weighing whether to step back from their careers just as they reach peak earning years. Then there are the costs of in vitro fertilization and egg and embryo storage that can accompany later-in-life pregnancies.
Women 40 and older accounted for about 4.3% of U.S. births in 2025, up from 1.2% in 1990, according to provisional data from the National Center for Health Statistics. The average first-time mother was 27.5 years old, a record high, according to 2023 data, the most recent available.
Older parents tend to be more educated, federal data show, and many describe having more patience, flexibility and financial stability than they would have had a decade earlier. Research has found that children of older mothers score higher on early assessments, a result of the education, income and stability those parents tend to bring.