Decreasing likelihood of first child with paternal age

DaveC426913

DaveC426913

Valued Senior Member
I am having a heckuva time convincing someone that the older a man is, the less likely he will find a mate wanting to start a family. (Particularly in the zone where the woman is still of childbearing age - and wanting to start a family - partnering up with an older man.)

All I really need is a chart that shows frequency of first child as a function of paternal age.

I don't want stats about how paternal age affects the outcome (health) - or how it affects fertility - those will skew the results of how many farther of what age are actually starting families.


Cannot find such an animal.

Very frustrating. I think it is actually too basic a statistic to generate any hits.
 
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Write4U said:
Women; 24.9
https://www.npr.org/sections/health...-of-first-time-moms-keeps-climbing-in-the-u-s

Men; 30.9 (and climbing)
https://www.npr.org/sections/health...r-forty-its-now-a-lot-more-common-study-finds
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Yeah, I've found charts that show its rising with time, but no charts showing frequency of first child with age. (Two very different things.)

Write4U said:
Women; 24.9
IMO, an older male's financial status also plays a major part. First child. heir to the estate....:)
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A minor part, compared to age.
 
DaveC426913 said:
Yeah, I've found charts that show its rising with time, but no charts showing frequency of first child with age. (Two very different things.)
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It says the average age for women is 24.9 years and climbing, and for males is 30.9 years and climbing.

I would guess that any person, male or female of childbearing age can and does have children. It's only natural. And sometimes perhaps not even by choice.
 
Write4U said:
It says the average age for women is 24.9 years and climbing, and for males is 30.9 years and climbing.
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Yes but that does not have anything to do with what I'm looking for.

Look at this super-simple, hypothetical diagram.
What you are talking about is described by the top diagram.
What I am talking about is the bottom diagram.

Notice how - while the average age of parents in the top diagram is increasing - it is not having any effect on the slope - how much it drops off with age.
aging.png



Write4U said:
I would guess that any person, male or female of childbearing age can and does have children. It's only natural. And sometimes perhaps not even by choice.
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Sure but plausible is not factual.
 
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DaveC426913 said:
I am having a heckuva time convincing someone that the older a man is, the less likely he will find a mate wanting to start a family. (Particularly in the zone where the woman is still of childbearing age - and wanting to start a family - partnering up with an older man.)

All I really need is a chart that shows frequency of first child as a function of paternal age.

I don't want stats about how paternal age affects the outcome (health) - or how it affects fertility - those will skew the results of how many farther of what age are actually starting families.


Cannot find such an animal.

Very frustrating. I think it is actually too basic a statistic to generate any hits.
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I don't have any statistics and of course an 80 year old is less likely to find a mate who wants to have children because it's not like that an 80 year old will find a 40 year old who is interest in him in the first place.

If a guy is 50 and wants kids. It's not all that hard to find a 40 year old woman who wants to have kids to marry. That 40 year old is looking very hard and is quickly running out of options.
 
Seattle said:
I don't have any statistics and of course an 80 year old is less likely to find a mate who wants to have children because it's not like that an 80 year old will find a 40 year old who is interest in him in the first place.

If a guy is 50 and wants kids. It's not all that hard to find a 40 year old woman who wants to have kids to marry. That 40 year old is looking very hard and is quickly running out of options.
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This is exactly what I'm trying to call out.
A member on another forum believes that his financial attractiveness will rise faster than his age unattractiveness will fall, thus thinking we will actually have better luck having a family later in life (despite all statistics to the contrary.)
 
So, the article Randwolf cited contains this chart:
Birth-Rates-2.jpg


And that can be translated to this, simply by plotting a single group:
birth.png
That's really all I'm trying to show.
New family frequency drops off dramatically between a father's age of 30 and 40.

So, if one factors in advantages (such as wealth or good looks), they will help across the board, but will not help proportional to age (in other words they're a constant, applied to y):
birth2.png

And what that tells us is that - wealth or good-looks notwithstanding - your odds of having a new family are still dramatically lower if you wait:

birth3.png
 
Part of the problem is that there aren't that many men in the older age groups that want to have families, if they haven't got them already. So if someone is in an older age group, is financially secure, and wants a family...the statistics aren't really about that situation.

The statistics just show what happens to most men but most men after the age of 50 don't want kids.

I'm sure it's still easier for things to work out if someone is younger than 50 but if someone is a good looking, financially secure man over 50 it should be no problem to find a younger woman around 40 who suddenly feels the baby clock ticking.

The other problem is that fertility in women falls off dramatically after age 40 so she may not be able to have kids even if she wants them.

The take away is that even though a 50 year old, attractive, financially secure man can likely have a family, there is no advantage to waiting that long and doing so by age 40 is even more advantageous for many reasons.

Advanced age means looks decrease but it also means that the father is less likely to be alive and that's also a disadvantage.
 
Seattle said:
Part of the problem is that there aren't that many men in the older age groups that want to have families, if they haven't got them already. So if someone is in an older age group, is financially secure, and wants a family...the statistics aren't really about that situation.

The statistics just show what happens to most men but most men after the age of 50 don't want kids.
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That's a good point.

Seattle said:
I'm sure it's still easier for things to work out if someone is younger than 50 but if someone is a good looking, financially secure man over 50 it should be no problem to find a younger woman around 40 who suddenly feels the baby clock ticking.
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Well, "...no problem to find a..." is the real sticky bit, isn't it?

If you have, say, 100 women to choose from in your 30s, but only 3 to choose from in your 50's, that's a pretty significant thinning of the pool. *see below for these numbers


Seattle said:
Advanced age means looks decrease but it also means that the father is less likely to be alive and that's also a disadvantage.
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Yes - a factor that many women will feel disqualifies a man from being a good choice for a father.
 
The implication of this chart becomes apparent.
Roughly, the incidence of birth more than halves every five years the father ages.

birth4.png
 
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DaveC426913 said:
That's a good point.


Well, "...no problem to find a..." is the real sticky bit, isn't it?

If you have, say, 100 women to choose from in your 30s, but only 3 to choose from in your 50's, that's a pretty significant thinning of the pool. *see below for these numbers



Yes - a factor that many women will feel disqualifies a man from being a good choice for a father.
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That's why I think you have to qualify your premise. There is a big difference between a man 50 and a woman 40 and a man 70 and a woman 40.

Dating, in general, is harder the older you get (both sexes) for the reason that you mentioned. The dating pool shrinks and it's less likely for you to have that finding a soul mate feeling. That happens more in your 20's.

When you are older you are dealing with people who potentially aren't that good in long-term relationships, have a lot of baggage, have gotten used to being single, are not well-adjusted. Not that those things have to apply, it's just much more likely that some of them do apply.

When you get old enough, your friends think they know of a good match for you just because they know of a single female, who they feel is a nice person, who is in your age group.

When you are 20, most every female you run into is nice, attractive and still you really only feel a strong connection with 1 in 100 (made up number).

When you are older and you run into a great person who is single you tend to think they just haven't met a great person until they met you. That's almost never the case. If they are great in many areas, attractive, easy to be around, etc. there has almost always got to be another shoe to drop or they wouldn't have been available this long.

This can apply to men as well as women but it's even more likely with women because women generally have a much longer list of what they want in a relationship than men.
 
But, as I have been pointing out to the OP, "dating" is not the same animal at all as "starting a family". And the former does not linearly map onto the latter.
 
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