Anne Hathaway’s Glow Captures What 40 Looks Like Now. A Woman in Her Mid-40s Today Can Expect Another 40 Healthy Years, and Births Among Women 40 and Older Have Risen 193% Since 1990
Photo JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP via Getty Images
If you’re in your 40s and believe you’re still young, you’re probably right, so goes the logic of a new and very interesting Wall Street Journal article on Anne Hathaway.
Hathaway announced the pregnancy on Instagram with three words: “x Baby, I’m yours x.” She’s been showing the bump through a two-week press run for “The Odyssey” that ran from New York to London to Paris and back, waving to fans this week as she left a Late Night with Seth Meyers taping at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Prior to the announcement, she was seen in St. Tropez also glowing and showing the first signs of her baby bump.
Natalie Portman, 45, shared her own pregnancy news in April. “I know it’s such a privilege and a miracle,” she told Harper’s Bazaar. “And knowing it’s probably the last time, I cherish every moment.”
Last month, 44-year-old Serena Williams returned to Wimbledon singles and lost in the first round. She said afterward that she “enjoyed the moment more than anything.” Her sister Venus, 46, is still on tour.
The shift shows up in the numbers. The median first-time homebuyer hit 40 in 2025, per the National Association of Realtors. Women 40 and over made up nearly 20% of America’s graduate students in 2021, about two-thirds of them women. American women now have a life expectancy of 81.4 years, and a woman in her mid-40s can reasonably plan on decades of active life still ahead.
The milestones that used to define a settled life by 40, the house, the career, the kids, keep arriving later. It leaves the decade looking less like an ending and more like room to keep going.
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