Background: The age at parenthood has risen by about five years in the last decades in the Netherlands. Previous studies typically focused on the age at which people have their first child, but little is known about desired timing of parenthood and how this desire changes. Objective: In this study, we examined three facets of postponement: (1) desired age to have a first child, (2) changes in this desired age, and (3) whether the desires are met. Methods: We use data from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (N = 2,296), which is a representative sample of men and women in the Netherlands who have been followed for up to ten years. Results: Men and women desire to have children at relatively high ages, i.e., around age 30. About half of the respondents update these desires by increasing the desired age as they get older. Half of respondents do not become a parent at their desired time. Conclusions: The high ages at first birth observed are due to a combination of the three facets of postponement. Contribution: This study contributes to the literature by showing that the high observed age at which people have children nowadays is due to high desired ages, updating these desires upwards, and not achieving their desired timing.

中文翻译：

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荷兰计划和推迟生育的三个方面

背景：在过去的几十年中，荷兰的育龄年龄大约增加了5岁。以前的研究通常集中在人们生下第一个孩子的年龄，但是对所希望的生育时间以及这种愿望如何改变的了解很少。目的：在这项研究中，我们研究了推迟的三个方面：（1）想要生第一个孩子的期望年龄；（2）这个期望年龄的变化；（3）是否满足了愿望。方法：我们使用来自社会科学纵向互联网研究的数据（N = 2,296），该数据是荷兰人中被追踪长达十年的代表性样本。结果：男人和女人希望有相对较高的年龄，即30岁左右的孩子。大约一半的受访者通过随着年龄的增长增加期望的年龄来更新这些愿望。一半的受访者未在其期望的时间成为父母。结论：观察到的第一胎年龄高是由于三个方面的推迟。贡献：这项研究为文献做出了贡献，表明当今人们观察到的较高的生育年龄是由于较高的期望年龄，向上更新这些欲望并没有达到所需的时间安排。