Currently in the UK, 31 is the average age of first-time motherhood, 34 is the average age to buy a home and 30  is the average age to get married. Coupled with neuroscientists now stating that your brain doesn’t reach full maturity until 30, entering that decade is a huge milestone age. 

 

At age 30 womanhood has always creaked with burden and expectation. Pressure comes from parents, peers and society, all of whom are impatient for her to take her next step. These societal milestones are pressurising enough but they’re further intensified for today’s 30s woman thanks to the pandemic making her feel she is behind schedule in obtaining them and the economic climate making them feel even further out of reach. Post pandemic, this generation is also undergoing a huge period of personal re-evaluation and have grown up in a world fueled by social media where milestones are publicly and performatively marked.  

 

The result? A generation that is silently beating themselves up about not having achieved enough. But most interestingly this is a cohort not prepared to compromise trying to play catch up. 

  

This is going to be a fascinating decade for Millennial and Gen Z women and, at Think Stylist, we will be observing and reporting every single step.