This Working Group focused its research on various issues of late childbearing, i.e. fertility at older reproductive ages, in a low fertility context. In particular it dealt with:

• Sub-fecundity for females over age 30 and for males over age 35;
• Efficiency of medically assisted reproduction;
• Foetal mortality: levels, tempo, biological and social factors;
• Survival and quality of the child. This topic covers e.g. congenital malformations, oncological and cardio-vascular diseases, child development including both biological and psycho-social factors.

Activities of the Working group included:

• a meeting during the European Population Conference 2003 in Warsaw
• a seminar in Paris in May 2004
• a seminar in The Hague in October 2007

The Working Group was last chaired by Catherine Gourbin and Guillaume Wunsch (Institute of Demography, University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, e-mail gourbin@demo.ucl.ac.be) , and Gijs Beets ( Netherlands Interuniversity Demographic Institute, NIDI). Its mandate ended in 2008.