It’s all economic, pride and ego. Once you hit a certain amount of income, the marginal cost of children seems too much. It’s not a big deal when you have nothing.

Maintaining a middle/upper middle class lifestyle for your kids is expensive. Few people can afford daycare, 5x college tuitions, etc. Extended families tend to be spread out and social networks aren’t what they once were.

Dudes online blather about paternity, divorce, etc. all nonsense and all irrelevant. Bad marriages and divorce are not new, although religious and conservative people try to imply that. The entire movement for prohibition in the early 20th century was driven by absent fathers who would drink their wages away and let the children starve in some hovel.

The only thing that’s “new” is women have the ability to choose birth control.