On Friday 5 December 2014, I provided expert commentary on new statistics released by the Office of National Statistics on Childbearing in England and Wales in an article entitled ‘Rise of the only child as women build their carriers‘ by Richard Ford in The Times.
“One-child families are at their highest level for more than 80 years as millions of women delay motherhood to establish themselves in the workplace… Jennifer Holland, an affiliate of the ESRC Research Centre for Population Change at the University of Southampton, said that despite the increase in the promotion of one-child families there remained a strong norm of two-children per family… The influence of more educational opportunities for men and women was [a] factor. ‘The expansion of higher education has been a driving force for people deciding to start families later. More and more women are getting degrees and it has had a cascading effect. They start their careers, then want to get established in the workplace before they start their family.'” The Times, 5 December 2014
Jennifer A. Holland 