A third of women would have babies earlier

The Benefits of Hindsight
A third of women would go for babies earlier

Last month we ran a mini poll on whether today's working mums would do it all the same way or go for babies earlier and is the next generation doing it differently.

Over 340 women responded to the poll, 76 per cent were over 30 and 78 per cent of those who responded had had their first child over 30.

Of those who had their first child over 30 years old, over half had consciously decided to delay babies for their career progression and the opinions were pretty evenly divided over whether they'd left it too late or not, with 47 per cent of the over 30s mums saying they had left it too late, and 49 per cent believing their age was fine.

However, 69 per cent of respondents said women are too blasé about their body clock with just under a third saying that with the benefit of hindsight they'd have tried to have children earlier.

A half of women believed that the next generation of women will most likely start having children earlier and just under a third said in hindsight, they would have started trying for a baby earlier.

Only 14 per cent of those polled had chosen to stay at home or were able to stay at home; 32 per cent worked full time; 40 per cent worked part time and 6 per cent worked from home. Over half thought that employers had a long way to go when it comes to being supportive of working mums, although 36 per cent thought they had it right in the main.

Two thirds of women do still believe that they can have it all (work and babies) successfully although it's not easy but a third of women believe it's just a myth.

So the jury's out and it remains to be seen what the next generation will do. Will they put their careers before babies? Or will women simply return to having babies at a younger age and ditch the career? Will they be able to afford to do that?

Society still has a tendency to look down on women who have babies at a young age when really it should accept that women's body clocks and fertility are not developing with social and work trends and opinions.

The cost of living is increasing and the workforce needs women more than ever, but with the opportunity for part time employment, working from home, remote working and flexi hours, and with fathers prepared to share the care as long as employers get on board too, work should not present a barrier to having children.

Employers could be a lot more flexible and more employers could offer workplace crèches. Child care centres could operate more work friendly hours, and the Australian government could do a lot more to support child care workers and services and get behind nannies and au pairs, to address the lack of child care places and allow women to have more flexible and affordable in home care.

So it's down to employers, governments and child care organisations to ensure that women are not put in the position where they feel they have to choose.