Our World
in Data
Oxford Martin School logoUniversity of Oxford logoGlobal Change Data Lab logo

Mean age at childbearing

Description

Mean age of mothers at the birth of their children if women were subject throughout their lives to the age-specific fertility rates observed in a given year.

Data source
Human Fertility Database (2026); UN, World Population Prospects (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Unit
years
Date range
1891-2023
Last updated
2025-10-22
Next expected update
2026-11-22
Managed by
Lucas Rodés-Guirao

This figure is calculated from a single year's — it does not track real groups of women through their lives.

Show more Show less

Frequently asked questions

How did Our World in Data process this data?

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline
Notes on our processing step for this indicator

This indicator is constructed by combining data from multiple sources:

  • Before 1950: Historical estimates by Human Fertility Database (2026).

  • 1950–2023: Population records by the UN World Population Prospects (2024 revision).

Data sources

Human Fertility Database

The HFD is entirely based on one and the same type of initial data - officially registered birth counts by calendar year, mother's age (and/or cohort) and (whenever possible) biological birth order. These data, together with total female population exposure from the Human Mortality Database (www.mortality.org) and parity-specific female population exposure from selected population censuses, population registers, or large-scale surveys, are further processed using a uniform set of methods. The major HFD output includes detailed data on births, unconditional and conditional fertility rates, cohort and period fertility tables as well as selected aggregate indicators such as total fertility rates, mean ages at childbearing, and parity progression ratios.

For each country, there are four blocks of data provided:

  • Summary Indicators
  • Age-Specific Data
  • Fertility Tables
  • Input Data

More details at https://www.humanfertility.org/Data/ExplanatoryNotes, and https://www.humanfertility.org/File/GetDocumentFree/Docs/methods.pdf.

Retrieved on
October 22, 2026
Retrieved from
https://www.humanfertility.org/Home/Index
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. 
Human Fertility Database. Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (Germany) and Vienna Institute of Demography (Austria). Available at www.humanfertility.org (data downloaded on 2026-10-22).

United Nations – World Population Prospects

World Population Prospects 2024 is the 28th edition of the official estimates and projections of the global population that have been published by the United Nations since 1951. The estimates are based on all available sources of data on population size and levels of fertility, mortality and international migration for 237 countries or areas. If you have questions about this dataset, please refer to their FAQ. You can also explore data sources for each country or visit their main page for more details.

Retrieved on
July 11, 2024
Retrieved from
https://population.un.org/wpp/downloads/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. 
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024). World Population Prospects 2024, Online Edition.

United Nations – World Population Prospects – Interim Update

World Population Prospects 2024 is the 28th edition of the official estimates and projections of the global population that have been published by the United Nations since 1951. The estimates are based on all available sources of data on population size and levels of fertility, mortality and international migration for 237 countries or areas. If you have questions about this dataset, please refer to their FAQ. You can also explore data sources for each country or visit their main page for more details.

This is an interim update containing revised medium-variant estimates and projections for Togo.

Retrieved on
March 31, 2026
Retrieved from
https://population.un.org/wpp/downloads/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. 
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2024). World Population Prospects 2024, Online Edition.

How to cite

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Mean age at childbearing”, part of the following publication: Saloni Dattani, Lucas Rodés-Guirao, and Max Roser (2025) - “Fertility Rate”. Data adapted from Human Fertility Database, United Nations. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20261022-182347/grapher/period-average-age-of-mothers.html [online resource] (archived on October 22, 2026).

How to cite this data

If you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Human Fertility Database (2026); UN, World Population Prospects (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Human Fertility Database (2026); UN, World Population Prospects (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Mean age at childbearing” [dataset]. Human Fertility Database, “Human Fertility Database”; United Nations, “World Population Prospects”; United Nations, “World Population Prospects – Interim Update” [original data]. Retrieved October 22, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20261022-182347/grapher/period-average-age-of-mothers.html (archived on October 22, 2026).

All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately. This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.

All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Download

Quick download

You can download the visualization as an image or download the chart data.