Eva Beaujouan

© Francesco Vuolo

A few decades ago, most women had their children in their 20s. Today, across the high-income countries, they tend to have them in their 30s. Whether women and men will have children or not, and how many, is thus increasingly determined by their desire and ability to have children at later reproductive ages. In that context, the conditions met by individuals in their 30s have become key to having children. The objective of BIC.LATE (“biological, individual and contextual factors of fertility recovery”) is to study these conditions. Eva Beaujouan and her team will assess the importance of infertility and assisted reproduction for fertility recuperation; detect new inequalities that could raise in that context; and explain differences in fertility levels across the low-fertility countries. BIC.LATE will no longer consider that fertility is explained globally, but that it is driven by different factors depending on the age. It will link the conditions at the time of fertility recuperation to today’s and tomorrow’s fertility levels. And finally, it will inform policy-makers about the major contextual drivers of future fertility, using clearly articulated storylines and their associated scenario.