A recent trend has become visible among American fathers. Nowadays, men seem to delay the moment when they become parents, leading to an increase in the average age of new dads. Over the last 40 years, the average paternal age increased by 3.5 years.
American fathers are now older
Researchers were curious about the evolution of the average age at which Americans become fathers. Therefore, they developed a study, where they observed how this age increased from 1972 to 2015. At the beginning of the observation, men became fathers at around 27.4 years. Now, the age increased to 30.9 years. The record was owned by Asian-American men, who became fathers at 36 years old.
The fact that American fathers are gradually getting older doesn’t come without implications. A man’s age when he becomes a father for the first time influences the number of children he can have. Therefore, if he has his first child when he is older, the country demographics can seriously be affected.
This can seriously affect the upcoming populations
American fathers get two new mutations in their sperm each year, on average. Also, an advanced age of the father is associated to many disorders in the baby, such as autism, schizophrenia, mutations of the chromosomes, genetic conditions, or even cancer.
One of the reasons why the age of fatherhood increased is the higher level of education. Fathers with a college degree now have an average age of 33.3. Also, about nine percent of all American newborns have a father older than 40, while only one percent have fathers older than 50.
For this study, which was published in the journal Human Reproduction, researchers analyzed the data collected by a live birth repository. The data had been collected between 1972 and 2015, and contained a total of 168,867,480 births. Also, the research discovered that the maternal age has increased as well.
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