Older celebrities make the news when they become pregnant older than the ‘norm’ – such as Halle Berry who has announced she is having a second child at the age of 46.
It’s OK if you live a celebrity lifestyle and can afford kids as a pensioner, but the growing numbers of older parents are finding paying for children in retirement was not included in the pension budget.
Nearly a million UK adults are having their first child in their 40s or 50s, and even 60s, and one pension firm has calculated that their pension will leave them £2,000 short a year.
LV= carried out the survey which discovered that the ages of 49 and 43 are what people now think to be the final ages for men and women to become parents.
Of those who became dads for the first time, around a third were aged between 50 and 70 with 6% of first time mums being over 45.
Famous footsteps
Ray Chinn, head of personal pensions at the firm, said: “Everyone has their own reasons for starting a family and we often see mature celebrities who have become new parents.
“Now we see normal men and women following in their famous footsteps before they were considered to be too old.”
He added that other reasons given for late parenthood is that they didn’t meet the right person to have a child until later in life or the they had struggle to conceive.
Other reasons given include unplanned pregnancy, the results of IVF treatment or the desire to enjoy child-free life for as long as possible.
However, others declared they weren’t ready to become a parent while others pointed to the demands of modern living, including getting on the property ladder and developing a career first.
Quarter of pensioners have a child under 15
This trend for becoming parents at a later age has been developing over the last 20 years and has rocketed by 298% for women and 149% for men who had children over the age of 40.
The survey found that these older parents are concerned about the costs of raising a child, particularly how they will impact on their savings.
The average annual cost to raise a child is £10,593 with the average annual pension income of £8,407 means that there is a £2,186 shortfall.
The real problem, says LV=, is that the pension figure is for someone with a private pension but there is a worrying 27% of pensioners confessing to not having saved a single penny for their retirement.
The situation means that nearly a quarter of older parents will have a child aged 15 or younger when they retire.
They are also unprepared for a child’s most expensive stage – that of going to university when a degree costs, on average, £56,000 to complete.
