American men are more ready for diaper duty than European men. True or false?…

With Father’s day coming up this weekend we thought it would be interesting to learn more about the incredible moment in a man’s life – when he becomes a dad for the first time. Here we share with all our readers our interesting findings:

Perhaps men in the U.S. are simply more broody? or are European men too attached to their Saturday morning lie-ins!? Whilst we don’t know the reasons why, according to our new research, European men wait longer to become dads than their U.S. counterparts. However on the whole – more men around the world are waiting longer before taking the plunge into fatherhood….

Our findings, based on worldwide family tree data of over 2.73 million families over the last decade, show an overall aging generation of first-time dads and a difference in trends between the U.S. and Western Europe. In addition, there appears to be a steep rise in the percentage of first-time dads older than age 40. Perhaps 40 is the new 30 after all…read on to find out more!

Our data shows that the global average age of a first-time dad consistently went up from age 29 in the year 2000 to 31 in 2011.

Global average age of first-time dads (click to enlarge)

The average age of a first-time dad in the U.S. was 29.65 in 2010, considerably younger than a Western European equivalent of 32.51 (based on the average of UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Spain only).

US versus Europe - age of first-time dads (click to enlarge)

Men over 40 around the world appear to be much more in the baby-making mood today than in previous years, while the percentage of teenage dads was shown to be in decline. Data also indicated an interesting trend reversal in the U.S. over the last decade, with a higer percentage of men over 40 now entering fatherhood than teenage boys. The below chart shows the percentage of these over-40 first-time dads in the U.S., Germany and UK.

First-time dads over 40 (click to enlarge)

First-time teenage Dads (click to enlarge)

These findings were based on analyzing worldwide family tree data from more than 2.73 million families, looking at the age of a man when he has a child for the first time from 2000 to 2010.

We’d love to hear from you what you think! If you or someone you know waited until later in life until becoming a Father – please tell us the reasons why by writing in the comments section below.

Happy Father’s Day from our team at MyHeritage.com!