The latter finding contrasts directly with earlier results by Shakhatreh, Abbas and Issa (1996), who find that the impact of being born to a younger mother is significant, but the impact of being born to an older mother is not. We interpret our results against the backdrop of an underlying change in behavioural patterns during the past three decades, with a relative reduction in the numbers of very young mothers and a relative increase in the number of older mothers. In fact, a mother’s mean age has risen from 26 years in the whole sample (1971-2007) to 28 years in the 10-year period before the survey.