Is Older Really Wiser? Maternal Age and Child Development

Although numerous researchers have examined the potential negative consequences of teen parenthood, fewer studies have investigated how having children later in life can benefit or disadvantage those children. As the average age of first-time mothers continues to rise, especially in bigger cities, it is important to understand what this means for children. Does the advanced life experience of an older mother help her to be a better parent, or does the increased risk of birth complications outweigh the benefits?

A recent study by Greg J. Duncan, Kenneth T. H. Lee, Maria Rosales-Rueda, and Ariel Kalil attempts to answer these questions. The researchers examined data collected by the U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY79), a long-term survey study that followed a large group of young men and women starting in 1979, and the Child and Young Adult Supplement of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (CNLSY79), a similar study that followed the children of the NLSY79 participants. The researchers collected information from 7,739 of these children (born between 1983 and 2002) and their mothers. They analyzed data on the mothers’ ages at childbirth, as well as the scores of academic achievement tests and socioemotional development assessments that the children took between the ages of 10 and 13. The researchers also controlled for several other characteristics that might influence these measurements, such as race, gender and parents’ academic aptitude.

Duncan et al. find a significant correlation between maternal age and child outcomes. They find that each additional year of delay before a mother’s first birth was associated with an increase in the child’s math scores by 0.039 standard deviations, a 0.028 standard deviation increase in the child’s reading scores, and a 0.029 standard deviation decrease in the child’s behavior problems. This means that, on average, the children born to older mothers tended to perform more successfully on various assessments. Even the children of the oldest mothers showed increasingly higher average scores on these measurements of child development. These findings provide a counterargument to previous studies that found increased developmental risks associated with pregnancies at older ages.

In their analysis, the authors looked for mediating variables that might explain this relationship between maternal age and child outcomes. They find that the largest factor seemed to be maternal education; when women had their first child at an older age, they were much more likely to also have pursued higher levels of education. When the researchers include years of maternal education in their analysis, they find that this variable helped to explain the positive association between child development and mothers’ ages. The authors theorize that women who delay parenthood to pursue further education might be able to increase their family income, which could benefit their children. In addition, mothers with further schooling might have a greater ability to organize their time and resources in a way that allows them to achieve their parenting goals. However, much of the correlation is not explained by any of the factors that the researchers studied, and further research may be needed to explain why the children of older parents display these developmental advantages.

Given the commonly accepted assumption that children born to very young mothers are disadvantaged, it will likely come as little surprise that this study found the inverse to be true: Children born to older mothers seem to display a developmental advantage. However, it is also notable that the researchers did not observe any data confirming the general assumption that children born to the oldest mothers face developmental risks. The authors suggest that future research might help policymakers better grasp how maternal age and child development interact with other factors, especially socioeconomic levels and the academic achievement gap. This greater understanding would enable policymakers to properly support our most vulnerable children and families.

Article source: Duncan, Greg J., Kenneth T. H. Lee, Maria Rosales-Rueda, and Ariel Kalil, “Maternal Age and Child Development.” Demography, 55(6), (2018): 2229–2255.

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