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Updated: April 10, 2024 11:28 AM EDT | Originally published: April 10, 2024 9:24 AM EDT
In 1970, the average woman in the U.S. had her first baby at around 21 years old. That’s hard to imagine now: new federal data published in April show that in 2022, the average first-time mother was a little older than 27—a record high for the country, and a sign of a major demographic change.
1970年，美国女性首次生育的平均年龄在21岁左右。这在今天很难想象：2024年4月份公布的美国联邦数据显示，2022年，初次生育的女性平均年龄略高于27岁——创下美国历史新高，也标志着人口结构将发生重大变化。
This shift has been underway for years. Teenagers and women in their early 20s are having fewer kids, while the opposite is happening among older age groups. In 2022, for the seventh year in a row, the birth rate among U.S. women in their early 30s was higher than the rate among those in their late 20s. Perhaps even more notably, the number of babies born to women 40 and older, while still low overall, rose considerably from 2021 to 2022: up 6% among women ages 40 to 44 and 12% among those older than 45.
这一趋势已经持续多年。十几岁和二十出头的女性，生孩子的数量越来越少，而年龄较长的女性则呈现相反的趋势。2022年，三十岁出头的美国女性生育率连续第七年高于二十几岁的女性。更值得注意的是，40岁以上的女性生育子女数量虽然整体绝对值仍然更低，但从2021年到2022年增幅显著：40至44岁女性生育子女数增加了6%，45岁以上女性增加了12%。
Dr. Florencia Polite, chief of general obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, says those data track with what she sees in the clinic: U.S. parents are getting older. “This is the first time I’ve had three patients who are pregnant in their 50s,” she says.
宾夕法尼亚大学医学院普通妇产科主任弗洛伦西娅·波利特医生说，这些数据跟她在门诊看到的情况是一致的：美国新生儿父母的年龄越来越大。“我有三个患者都是五十多岁才怀孕的，还都是头胎。”
The foundation for this trend was laid in the 1960s, when the birth control pill came onto the scene and gave women unprecedented control over their fertility, says Aurélie Athan, a clinical psychologist who researches the psychology of motherhood and reproductive identity at Columbia University's Teachers College. In the decades since, it has become increasingly common for people to have children later in life for a range of reasons, including concerns about finances and child care, waiting longer to get married or find a partner, and prioritizing education, career, or leisure time during young adulthood. The decision to stay child-free has also become less stigmatized, Athan notes, and some data suggest more people are taking that route.
“Women are having a pregnant pause,” Athan says. “They’re really taking time to say, ‘Do I want to do this?’”
阿坦说：“女性在暂停‘怀孕’。她们停下来，犹豫很久，‘我到底要不要生孩子？’”
It's not just women. Research suggests many young men are also thinking deeply about when and whether to have kids, says Karen Guzzo, a family demographer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
不只是女性。北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校的家庭人口学家凯伦·古佐说，研究表明，很多年轻男性也在犹豫要不要生孩子、什么时候生孩子。
But waiting doesn't always mean people aren't enthusiastic about eventually having children. Guzzo found in a 2023 study that it's still far more common for people to want children than to plan to stay child-free, and that most prospective parents want more than one baby. What's different from decades past, Guzzo says, is that people are increasingly pushing back the ages at which they have those kids, often into their 30s and beyond.
但推迟生育并不等于他们确定就是不想要孩子。古佐在2023年的一项研究中发现，想要孩子的人远远多于不打算生育的人，而且大多数准父母都想要不止一个孩子。古佐说，与过去几十年不同的是，大家越来越多地推迟生育年龄，往往推迟到三十多岁甚至更晚。
That can be a gamble. In a 2018 New York Times survey, about 25% of respondents said they had or expected to have fewer kids than they originally wanted, often because they couldn't afford or ran out of time to have their ideal number of children. People of color in the U.S. often say they want large families but end up with smaller ones, Guzzo notes—a sign that not everyone is able to achieve their ideal scenario.
这种选择也可能很冒险。《纽约时报》2018年的一项调查显示，约25%的受访者表示，他们已经生育或预计生育的子女数量，比最初的计划要少，原因一般是经济条件不允许，或者没有足够的时间，所以生不了想要的那么多孩子。古佐指出，美国的有色人种常说想要多子多孙，但一般却生的不多——这说明，并非每个人都能实现自己的理想状态。
"What I really worry about," Guzzo says, "is that we've become a country where some people get to have the kids that they want and some people don't."
古佐说：“我真正担心的是，美国的现状是：有的人想要孩子，也能生自己想要的那么多孩子，有的人想要，却生不了那么多。”
In some ways, delayed parenthood is a sign of progress. Waiting to have kids is a kind of empowerment for some women, ensuring they can finish their education, find a fulfilling job, become financially stable, choose the right partner, and grow and mature as a person before settling down to have a family. Some studies suggest that kids born to older parents—who tend to be college-educated and relatively affluent—often grow up to be healthier, better educated, and better behaved than peers with younger parents, and that women who have children later in life report bigger happiness boosts around and after their birth, compared to younger mothers.
Untangling why people feel they need to be educated, financially secure, and partnered before having kids is more complex. For many people, it's related to societal expectations—many rooted in class and race hierarchies—about what makes a "good" parent, research suggests. For others, it comes down to cold, hard math. Child care is prohibitively expensive in the U.S., paid parental leave isn't guaranteed, and living costs are sky-high in many places. Those structural barriers cause some people to postpone having kids by necessity.
Some people who wait to have kids, whether by choice or circumstance, may find that they’ve waited too long. Fertility begins to decline around a woman’s 30th birthday and starts to drop more dramatically around age 35. By the time a woman turns 45, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says, it’s very unlikely she’ll get pregnant naturally. (Although some men father children well past middle age, their fertility also declines with time.)
不管是主动选择还是被动无奈，有些人推迟生育可能会推迟得太久。女性的生育能力在30岁左右开始下降，到35岁左右下降得就更加明显。美国妇产科学会表示，女性到45岁时，自然怀孕的可能性就微乎其微了。(虽然有些男性在中年之后还能当爸爸，但他们的生育能力也会随着时间推移而下降。)
Enter the world of assisted reproductive technology, where demand for services like egg freezing and in vitro fertilization (IVF) is booming. As of 2023, 42% of Americans said they or someone they knew had used fertility treatments, up from 33% five years earlier. That growing popularity—and the hefty price tags attached to these services—have made it a multi-billion-dollar industry in the U.S.
于是，辅助生殖技术应运而生，冻卵和体外受精(IVF)等服务的需求激增。截至2023年，42%的美国人表示，他们自己或身边的人使用过辅助生殖治疗，而五年前这一比例还只有33%。这些服务越来越普及，价格也高得吓人，已经在美国发展成了一个价值数十亿美元的产业。
These scientific advances have allowed some people to have children who otherwise couldn't because of fertility issues, age, or life circumstances. In 2021 alone, almost 100,000 U.S. infants were born using these methods. But they're not accessible to everyone: a single IVF cycle can cost well over $10,000, and it may not be covered by insurance.
这些技术进步让一些因为不孕不育、年龄太大或生活条件不允许而无法生育的人能够怀孕生子。仅在2021年，就有近10万名美国婴儿得益于这些辅助生殖的方法而出生。但这些技术并非人人都能用得起：单次体外受精就要花1万多美元，而且保险可能还不报销。
Even for people who can afford that price tag, it's not a guarantee. In 2020, about 37% of assisted reproductive technology cycles undertaken in the U.S. resulted in a baby, meaning the majority of people either needed multiple cycles or did not end up conceiving. And as with natural conception, success rates decline with age, a cruel fact that means people who use fertility treatments as an insurance plan sometimes still face an uphill battle. Technology allows a woman to "stretch" her reproductive window, Athan says, "but it's still not elastic as maybe we've internalized."
即使是负担得起这个价格的人，也不能保证百分百会成功。2020年，在美国进行的辅助生殖技术疗程中，只有约37%最后得以生下孩子。也就是说，大多数人要么需要多次尝试，要么最终也没能怀孕。而且就像自然受孕一样，成功率会随着年龄增长而下降，这个残酷的事实意味着，那些把辅助生殖当作保险后手的人，有时候仍然要面临艰苦的努力。阿坦说，技术能让女性”延长”生育窗口期，“但它并不像我们以为的那样有弹性。”
Studies also show that the risks of pregnancy and birth complications—such as gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, preeclampsia, and miscarriage, plus low birth weight and genetic disorders in babies—rise with age. But as medical care advances and social norms shift, some women are pushing back on the idea that older mothers are automatically putting their health, and the health of their baby, in danger.
研究还表明，怀孕和分娩并发症的风险，比如妊娠糖尿病、高血压、先兆子痫和流产，以及婴儿体重过轻和遗传疾病，都会随着妈妈年龄增长而上升。但随着医疗水平的进步和社会观念的转变，一些女性开始反驳这种观点，不认可年龄大的母亲就一定会危及自己和孩子的健康。
Some doctors agree. Labels like "geriatric pregnancy," once applied to all mothers 35 and older, seem outdated at a time when birth rates are exploding among people in that age group. The more common medical term now is "advanced maternal age," but some doctors are reevaluating who fits into that category, says Polite, from the University of Pennsylvania. "The truth is, a lot of women from 35 to 40 are not really considered high-risk anymore," she says. With the testing methods and research available today, she says, it's pregnant women in their 40s and 50s to whom she pays closest attention.
一些医生也同意这种看法。像“高龄高风险产妇”这样的标签，以前是用来指所有35岁及以上的母亲，但今天这个年龄段生育率已经激增，这个标签似乎已经过时了。现在更常用的医学术语是“大龄孕产妇”。但宾夕法尼亚大学的波莱特说，有些医生正在重新评估什么样的人群符合这个标准。“其实，很多35到40岁的女性真的不算高风险了。”她说，以现在的检测手段和研究成果，她最关注的是那些四五十岁的孕妇。
Dr. Lisa Dunn-Albanese, an ob-gyn at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, agrees that it's become routine to see older parents in the clinic, and that most of them have healthy pregnancies. "I'm not too worried, I have to admit, about my 30-year-olds," she says. Age is often a less relevant risk factor than something like an underlying health condition, she adds.
波士顿布莱根妇科医院的妇产科医生丽莎·邓恩-阿尔巴内塞也认为，在门诊里看到年龄大一些的父母已经成了常态，而且他们大多数人的怀孕过程都很健康。“说实话，我对30多岁的孕妇不太担心，”她说。比起年龄，潜在的健康问题往往是更重要的风险因素。
To Dunn-Albanese, the data on delayed motherhood isn't overly concerning, at least from a medical perspective. But what it says about who is waiting to have kids and why, and the resources available to them when they do, is a more complex question, Guzzo says.
对邓恩-阿尔巴内塞医生来说，晚育的数据并不太会让她担忧，至少从医学角度来说不会。但古佐说，这些数据能反映出什么人在推迟生育、为什么推迟，以及他们生育时能获得什么资源，这是个更复杂的问题。
"We might be settling into this new, lower fertility rate where people are waiting longer to have kids," which is not inherently a bad thing, she says. What's more concerning, in her eyes, is the reality that not everyone who waits does so by choice, and that postponement can turn into not having children at all.
“我们可能正在适应这种更低生育率的新常态，人们推迟生育的时间更久了，”她说这本身并不是坏事。在她看来，更令人担忧的现实是，不是所有推迟生育的人都是主动选择晚生晚育，而且晚生晚育可能最后就变成不生不育。
"This is a pretty basic thing," Guzzo says. "If people want to have children someday and they can't, that's an indictment of how our society is structured."
古佐说：“这才是最基本的问题，如果大家想要孩子，却没办法要，那就是在控诉我们社会结构出了问题。”
精读精讲——单词短语
come onto/on the scene
to become involved, noticeable, or influential in a situation or field 出现，登场，来到现场或崭露头角。常用于表示某人或某事物开始进入某个领域舞台或者来到事发现场，例如新技术问世或新演员出道
A new competitor has come onto the scene.
一位新竞争者出现了。
untangle
v. to make a complicated subject or problem, or its different parts, clear and able to be understood 整理，理清（复杂问题）
It took years to untangle the legal complexities of the case.
理清该案牵涉到的复杂法律问题，花了很多年时间。
by necessity
doing something because it is unavoidable, required by circumstances, or the only option available rather than by choice 由于需要，出于必要，不可避免地，不得不
The changes were made by necessity.
这些变更是出于必要而做的。
hefty
adj. large in amount, size, force, etc. （数额、尺寸、力量等）大的，可观的
a hefty bill 巨额账单
internalize
v. to accept or absorb an idea, opinion, belief, etc. so that it becomes part of your character 使（想法、态度、信仰等）成为性格的一部分，使内化
He had not expected the public so readily to internalize the idea.
他没料到大众这么快就接纳了这个想法。
v. to hide the emotions or feelings although you think about them 将（情感）藏在心里
Many women tend to internalize their anxiety and distress.
女性常把焦虑和苦恼深藏心底。
indictment
n. something that shows a policy, system, society, etc. is bad or wrong 控诉；谴责
This blog is a sad indictment of our vacuous celebrity obsession.
这篇博客是对空洞名人崇拜的痛心谴责。
n. a formal statement of accusing someone of something 起诉书；公诉书
The charges on the indictment include murder and attempted murder.
起诉书上的指控包括谋杀罪及企图谋杀罪。
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