Statistics Canada reported last month that of the 367,864 babies born in Canada in 2007, 56 per cent were to mothers aged 30 and older. The most births (115,415) occurred among women aged 30 to 34, an increase of 3.7 per cent from 2006.

This marked the second year in a row that the fertility rate – the number of births per woman within a specific age group – among women aged 30 to 34 surpassed those aged 25 to 29. As well, the number of births in 2007 was the highest since 1995, prompting some to announce a “mini baby-boom.”

But Martinuk notes that studies have shown that women who choose to postpone motherhood into their 30s so they can first get established in a career face a much higher risk of ending up childless, with the risk increasing the longer they delay.

Martinuk said a survey in 2001 found that “at mid-life, 33 to 50 per cent of high-achieving women in the United States and 49 per cent per cent of corporate ultra-achievers (who make more than $100,000 per year) are childless. . . .

“Fully 90 per cent were confident (wrongly) that they could have a biological child when they were well into their 40s – even if it meant spending tens of thousands of dollars and subjecting themselves to complex medical procedures and reproductive technologies. But, by that age, it’s often too late.”

It is no “myth,” Martinuk added, for women to have both a career and a family – as long as they do not delay childbirth until their late 30s. “The real myth is that women can have it all at the time of their own choosing, and the present statistics suggest that women are still buying into that lie.”

“Among women aged 30 to 34, the fertility rate was highest in Alberta,” Statistics Canada reported. “Among the provinces, Ontario had the highest fertility rate for women aged 35 to 39 and British Columbia for women aged 40 to 49.”