Birth data

When collating information about births in the UK for my business, 4LITTLE1S.COM, our unique baby gift business, I used the Office of National statistics to gain some insight in terms of the baby market. Obviously, part of setting up a baby business is about understanding your market and estimating numbers for sales potential. As with most businesses you don’t necessarily need to take the whole market and aim for 100% market share. Even taking a small market share will provide for a successful business.

Anyway some key baby facts and figures care of the ONS:

· 2006 total UK fertility rate was 1.84 children per woman

· 2001 total UK fertility rate was 1.63 (increasing each year)

· 1964 total UK fertility rate was 2.95 children per woman (the baby boom!)

· N Ireland has the highest fertility rate in 2006 (1.94 children per woman)

· Scotland’s fertility remained lower (1.67 children per woman)

· The fertility of UK women in their thirties and forties over the last 20 years has been increasing steadily

· The mean age for giving birth in the UK has increased from 28.6 years in 2001 to 29.2 years in 2006

· Two children remains the most common family size in England and Wales

· 37 % of women reaching age 45 in 2006 (those born around 1961) had a family size of two children

· Nearly one in five women born in 1961 was childless, compared with one in ten women in 1941

· The proportion of women having three + children has fallen, from nearly 40% in 1941 to 30% in 1961

· In 2003 there were 695,500 births in the UK

· In 1920, when there were 1,126,800 births

Sources: Office for National Statistics, General Register Office for Scotland and Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.