In 2015, one in twenty newborns had a mother aged 40 or over, as in 1948

In 2015, 799,000 babies were born in France. This was 20,000 fewer births than in 2014, a drop of 2.4%. The number of births has returned to its level in 2002 or 2003 and to its average for the last decades. Of the newborns in 2015, 5% were born to a mother aged 40 or over. However, becoming a mother at this age is not new: in 1948, 5% of newborns had a mother aged 40 or over. The share of these late births subsequently decreased, but it has risen steadily since the beginning of the 1980s. Since that time, more and more of these late births have been first births. In 2015, 17% of newborns had a father aged 40 or over.