You’re correct. All this talk about when people choose to have kids over-intellectualizes that what is a biological function. My wife and I have three kids. I’m not sure you can say any of them resulted from a rigorous analysis. We had our first in law school as a happy surprise. We theoretically planned our second and third, a six year gap after the first. But that the timing coincided with moving from an apartment to a house. We weren’t thinking about more kids when we moved—we wanted to take advantage of good interest rates. But my wife observed later that the availability of more space for kids probably subconsciously influenced our decision to have more.

When talking about hormone disruption, I think people over-focus on how that affects the ability to have kids. But that overlooks how hormones can change behaviors and desires. I don’t see anyone rebutting the fact that testosterone levels in prime-age men have dropped by half compared to the 1960s. Yet nobody seems to be talking about that as a probable cause in the drop in fertility rates. Even if these men are technically able to have kids if they want. Is it possible that the drop in testosterone levels means that men are less interested in having kids, and perhaps less able to persuade women into doing so?

I don’t have kids. We are mid 40s now so chances are nearly zero. Wife does not even want sex for a few years. I have no idea what the problem is. If you know, please let me know!!!

I don't have kids, but I think this might be a generational schism where the default view of older generations is that having kids "is just what you do" without much more thought and younger generations see them as a burden. Obviously, generations of people are not a monolith but I think that holds true generally. You might be right that testerone levels have resulted in a declining birth rate, but you also have to consider methods of birth control that are available to women and how atomized society is at the moment (both sexes can do just fine independently)

There are a lot of variables that are hard to control for.

I think that humans just didn't evolve to want so many kids just for the sake of having them.

It's not like fertility rates just started dropping in the 1960s. TFR in the US 200 years ago was over 7. Wealth and fertility are anti-correlated almost universally, at least at the population level.

Why did people centuries or millennia ago have so many children? Partly economic reasons: they can work your farm, and they can support you when you're old. Partly because sex is great and children are a frequent result of it.

The economic reasons fade as wealth grows, and the connection between sex and having children gets decoupled by technology. That leaves innate desire, which just doesn't seem to be that strong. We don't need to posit some recent drop in innate desire to explain the drop in fertility rates. The historical behavior we see fits just fine with innate desire being constant, and just not that high.

"Less able to persuade women into doing so" is crazy. IMO the single biggest factor preventing kids right now in the US and other developed countries is the effects of COVID on the global economy along with the most significant period of global economic uncertainty in at least the 21st century. The amount of energy put into fertility is a waste, and by just enabling everyone to afford children the population problem could be solved. I'm also very afraid that all of these "fertility" companies are on a warpath to designer babies and I fear that could absolutely destroy trust and mutual respect in our society globally.

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