According to a recent study in the New York Times, the average age of a first-time mother in Manhattan is 31.1 years old. In San Francisco County, the number is nearly 32. And in the US as a whole, it was 26.3 in 2016.
This is what the national distribution looked like in 1980:
And this is what it looked like in 2016:
Perhaps not surprisingly, the biggest factor influencing the age of a first-time mother is education. Becoming educated and building a career takes time. First-time mothers tend to be older in big cities (particularly on the coasts) compared to rural areas.
The concern that researchers have with all of this is that it is symptomatic of growing inequality. Scrolling over the NY Times’ map, it would appear that there’s nearly a 10 year gap between the coasts and many parts of the country.
On the one hand you have people who are finishing high school and having kids fairly soon after. And on the other hand, you have people going to college, establishing their career, and waiting, in some cases a decade, to have kids.
This is significant because it can create a virtuous circle (excerpt from article):
“A college degree is increasingly essential to earning a middle-class wage, and older parents have more years to earn money to invest in violin lessons, math tutoring and college savings accounts — all of which can set children on very different paths.”
Unequal childhoods can lead to unequal outcomes.
Images: New York Times
Alain Bertaud has a new book coming out later this year from MIT Press called, Order without Design: How Markets Shape Cities. If you’re based or happen to be in New York, there’s a book launch on Tuesday, December 11, 2018 at NYU. You can RSVP here.
The book argues that, “operational urban planning can be improved by the application of the tools of urban economics to the design of regulations and infrastructure.” I haven’t read it yet and it’s not available until December, but I’ve just added it to my reading list.
I am of the opinion that none of us involved in the built environment should be working in insolation, without some understanding of the myriad of other forces shaping our cities. Cities are too complex and important for narrow views.
From what I’ve read about this book, it subscribes to that philosophy. And so I’m giving it a place in the queue.
Image: NYU
He is tall, lean and blond, with dazzling white teeth, and he looks ever so much like Robert Redford. He rides around town in a chauffeured silver Cadillac with his initials, DJT, on the plates. He dates slinky fashion models, belongs to the most elegant clubs and, at only 30 years of age, estimates that he is worth “more than $200 million.”
Last week the New York Times published a special investigation looking at the Trump family’s real estate empire and the suspect tax schemes that they allegedly employed over the years to preserve, grow, and pass it down.
According to the Times, all of which has been rebuked by a lawyer for the president, Donald Trump received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from the family empire.
I just finished reading the investigation in its entirety. It’s a long one. But if you’re interested, you can do the same here. If you’d prefer the Coles Notes version (Cliff Notes for you Americans), have a scroll through the headlines in this article instead.