Childlessness has reached record levels among a generation of women wrestling with the pressures of careers, mortgages and rocky relationships.
One in five women are now reaching middle age without having had children, new official figures showed today.
The proportion of women who go without having a family has reached historic levels last seen in the generation born just after the First World War, whose peak childbearing years coincided with times of depression, another world war, and post-war austerity.
Now, analysts said, many women have chosen to put family second to careers that would have been out of reach of their mothers and grandmothers.
Others have delayed having children for too long either because they cannot face the high costs or because they are uncertain about the commitment of live-in male partners.
The figures from the Office for National Statistics, prepared from birth registration records and large-scale household surveys covering many years, showed that one in five of the generation of women born in 1964 have not had children.
The 1964 generation have now reached the age of 46, at which they are officially counted as having completed their childbearing.
The 20 percent childlessness rate has been matched only by women born in 1920, who were teenagers during the depression of the Thirties, reached adulthood during World War Two when many men were away fighting and high numbers were killed, and who were 30 by the end of the austerity years that followed the war.
Women born later were part of the generation of baby-boomers whose birthrates reached record levels during the Fifties and Sixties. Only one in ten women born in 1945 was childless.
The ONS analysis said that 'the level of childlessness for women born in 1964 is at a 44-year high and comparable with that of women born in 1920.
On average, each woman who reached the age of 45 last year had 1.9 children, compared with 2.4 on average for their own mothers - the generation born in 1937.
Jill Kirby, director of the centre right think tank Centre for Policy Studies, said: 'There is increased pressure on women to be breadwinners and too often they have either had to postpone families or, sometimes, lose the opportunity to have children.'
(Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Web site.)
(Agencies)
这一代女性不仅要与事业、房贷和不稳定的情感关系等多重压力做斗争，她们无子女的比例也达到了有史以来的最高水平。 今天新发布的官方数据显示，五分之一英国女性现在已经人到中年，却依然没有孩子。 未成家女性的比例曾经在一战后达到历史最高点，因为一战后出生的那一代女性的生育高峰期正好赶上大萧条时期、又一场世界大战和战后的艰苦岁月。 分析家称，如今，许多女性优先选择了事业，让家庭退居二位，而且，她们所从事的职业在她们的母亲和祖母所处的年代是女性无法企及的。 许多其他女性一直延后生育计划是因为她们无法面对高额开支，或是因为她们不能确定同居男性伴侣的忠诚度。 来自英国国家统计局的数据表明，1964年出生的这一代女性有五分之一都没有生育经历。这些数据来自统计局的出生登记记录和开展了许多年的大规模的家庭调查。 1964年出生的一代如今已经46岁了，官方认为她们已经过了生育的年龄。 无子女的比率同样高达20%的只有1920年出生的女性。那一代在上世纪30年代的大萧条时期是青少年，刚成年时赶上二战，许多男性都去参加战斗，有一大批人在战争中丧生，在战后的艰苦时期结束时她们已经30岁了。 稍后出生的女性属于婴儿潮的一代，出生率在50年代和60年代达到了一个历史高峰。1945年出生的女性只有十分之一是没有孩子的。 国家统计局的分析报告称"1964年出生的女性的无子女率达到了44年以来的最高水平，和1920年出生的女性的无子女率持平"。 去年每位满45岁的女性平均生育孩子1.9个，而她们的母亲--1937年出生的一代平均生育孩子2.4个。 政策研究中心的主任吉尔•柯比说："女性赚钱养家的压力增大了，她们经常被迫推迟生育计划，有时甚至错过了怀孕的机会。"政策研究中心是一个中间偏右立场的智囊团。
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