Fertility, Age, and Career - the Balancing Act

As a follow-up to my post The Ticking of Your Biological Clock: Fertility Age Education or Scare Tactics? I thought I'd share this article from MarketWatch - What's the "Ideal" Age to Have a Baby and a Successful Career?  ForbesWoman and theBump.com recently polled 2,210 women online "of whom 76% were moms or moms-to-be and 24% did not have children" according to Forbes.com. 


A sampling of results:

This was a pretty interesting survey, especially after all that hype about women's fertility age declining faster than previously thought.  One of the results I found most interesting was this:

"...fertility is not the number one factor when it comes to deciding when to have a baby. The top two reasons were financial security (33%) and being emotionally "ready" to become parents (31%)."

So is this an indicator that women are uninformed about thier ideal fertility age or does it relate more to an honest desire for financial and emotional stability? This next statistic makes me think its stability: 

"62% OF WOMEN FEEL MOTHERHOOD NEGATIVELY IMPACTS A WOMAN'S CAREER. Yet working moms who were surveyed didn't feel as strongly when it came to their own career. Non-moms were more likely to think that motherhood had a negative impact on women's careers compared to moms and moms-to-be (71%, 59% and 58%, respectively)."

MarketWatch makes an interesting point, that working moms were less likely to think motherhood has a negative effect on a woman's career...well, it seems like a valid point until you take into account the fact that 59% is still a pretty good majority of moms who felt motherhood negatively impacts career. This probably explains why women would consider economic stability over fertility age, I assume.


On a feminist note, I get a little miffed when I read headings like "59% OF WORKING MOMS NO LONGER CARED AS MUCH ABOUT WORK POST-BABY".  Well thats not good publicity for us ladies!  Employers already tend to eye women of healthy fertility age a bit warily, wondering if they'll jump ship and claim maternity leave at any moment.  It might have been a bit more fair to all-caps their other statistic - " 59% of working moms are "glad to be back at work" post-baby"...


Personally, I'd like to see this survey asked of "working dads" and see what the other half of the population has to say on the subject.  Just saying.