Fertility rates for women under the age of 24 are at their lowest level since just before the Second World War, according to an official bulletin published yesterday.
Women aged 40 and over had a higher fertility rate than women aged under 20 last year for only the second time since 1947.
The figures from Office for National Statistics also showed that births to foreign-born mothers reached a record level in England and Wales last year and that the average age of mothers giving birth was at a high of 30.4 years.
Live births to women aged under 20 last year were 13.7 per 1,000 compared with 14.8 in 1938 and a peak of 50.6 in 1971, the ONS said.
Births to women aged 20 to 24 were 55.8 per 1,000 last year compared with 94.1 in 1938, and a peak of 181.6 in 1964.
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There were 15.9 births per 1,000 to women aged over 40 last year.
The proportion of births to mothers not born in the UK was 28.2 per cent, the highest level since 1969 when information on parents’ country of birth was first collected.
A little under half of all births, 47.6 per cent, were outside marriage, a similar proportion to the past five years.
Overall, the fertility rate fell from 1.82 children per woman to 1.81 between 2015 and 2016, with the rates varying across England and Wales.