Young people who want to become parents one day say they would like to have their first child at the age of 30.
66.9% of young people under 30 years of age in the Basque Country who do not have children say that they would (very much, 33.1%, or quite 33.8%) like to have them one day. The rest are divided between those who say they have little or no interest in having children or those that have no opinion on this issue.
These data come from an online survey that the Basque Youth Observatory conducted in December 2021 among a sample of more than 4,000 young people aged 15 to 29. If we compare these data with those collected in previous years, we find that the percentage of young people who say they want to have children has been decreasing steadily since 2015.
If we add up the percentages of the people who say that they would very much or quite like to have children, there are no substantial differences by gender or age; however, if we look at the percentages of those who say that they would very much like to have children, we find that, in 2021, this desire was somewhat higher among women than among young men (35.9% and 30.6%, respectively) and that it increased with age (39.0% of those aged 25-29 wanted it very much, compared with 27.4% of those aged 15-19).
If, in addition, we combine gender and age, we find that as the age of women increases, so does the percentage of those who would very much like to have children. In the case of young men, as age increases, the more extreme positions increase, i.e. both the percentage of those who would very much like to have children and those who do not want them at all.
On the other hand, young people who would like to have children one day say that 30.3 years of age is the ideal age to have them. Women consider 29.7 to be the ideal age and men 30.9.
This ideal age is slightly postponed as age increases. People aged 15-19 say they would like to become parents at the age of 29.3, those aged 20-24 consider the ideal age to be 30.2 and among people aged 25-29 the ideal age is postponed to 31.5.
This ideal age is lower than the actual age at which people have their first child in the Basque Country. According to data from the National Statistics Institute (INE), which can be consulted in the online statistics of the Basque Youth Observatory (in the demographics and population section), the average age of women in the Basque Country when they have their first child is 32.2, i.e. two and a half years later than what the average woman considers to be the ideal age to become a mother.
When young people who do not have children but want to have them are asked whether they think it is likely that they will have their first child at the age they consider ideal, 54.4% think it is very or quite likely, while 32.8% think it is not very or not at all likely to happen.
The perception of having one's first child at the desired age has dropped by almost ten points from 2019 to 2021. In 2019, 63.9% thought it very or quite likely, while in 2021 the percentage had dropped to 54.4%.
Looking specifically at the data for 2021, we find that, as age increases, the percentage of people who think they are very or quite likely to have a child at the age they consider to be ideal drops.
In general, if we take into account that only two out of every three young people without children under the age of 30 want to have them in the future (66.9%), that the ideal age for this is rather late (30.3 years of age) and that, even so, just over half of the young people who want to have children believe that they will be able to have them at that age (54.4%), we can conclude that Basque society is facing a major demographic challenge.
