The majority of women in Finland who experience maternity (almost 80%) give birth for the first time after the age of 25. An among them, those between 25 and 29 years old make up the largest group.
This is demonstrated by the latest comparative data on the ages of mothers in the different Member States of the European Union (EU), published recently by the EU Statistical Office (Eurostat).
The figures show that, among Finns, first maternity is most common among those women aged 25 to 29 years (33.14% of births of first children in 2017), closely followed by those women aged 30 to 34 years (30.47%). Those two age groups accounted for almost two thirds of all first-child births recorded in the country.
In Finland the third largest group, by percentage of first-child births, is that of women between 20 and 24 years old (17.99%). They are followed by women aged 35 to 39 years (13%) and, at a great distance, by those between 40 and 44 years old (2.96%).
The EU figures show that in Finland, the structure of births is similar to that of the surrounding countries such as Sweden, Norway and Denmark. In all of them, the largest group of first-time mothers is that of women aged 25 to 29 years.
If you want to read the detailed data for each country, you can do it HERE
Maternity delayed
This pattern is not repeated in other European countries, in which women tend to delay the birth of their first child due to various reasons, such as work or because they are emancipated at a later age. That is the case, for example, of women in the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland or Ireland, where the largest group of first-time mothers is between 30 and 34 years old.
Concerning older mothers, the highest proportions of births of first children born to women aged 40 or over were registered in Spain (8.8% of total births of first children in 2017) and Italy (8.6%), followed by Greece (6.6%), Luxembourg and Ireland (both 5.9%). At the other end of the scale, less than 2% of first-time births to women aged 40 or over were recorded in Lithuania (1.3%), Poland (1.4%), Slovakia (1.5%) and Latvia (1.8%),
Mothers aged under 20
The highest shares of births of first children to young mothers aged below 20 were recorded in Bulgaria (12.5% of total births of first children) and Romania (12.1%). They were followed by Hungary (8.5%) and Slovakia (8.1%).
In contrast, young mothers accounted for less than 2% of first births in Denmark (1.0%), Italy and Slovenia (both 1.1%), the Netherlands (1.2%), Luxembourg and Sweden (both 1.4%).
Romania and Bulgaria also had the largest numbers of cases of mothers aged 10 to 14 years. The last time such a case was registered in Finland was in 2015, according to Eurostat records.
In the whole European Union in 2017, the majority of first births (92%) were to women aged between 20 and 39 years old. A further 4% of first births were to women aged below 20, while another 4% were to women aged 40 or over.
