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Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by BeFlatXIII on Thursday December 01, 2022 @11:39AM (#33818708)
We have a societal problem when the rational individual choice (to provide your children the best head start) is to wait until your fertility declines to have children.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by rconti on Thursday December 01, 2022 @11:59AM (#33819046)
It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies (current and historical) would be better able to provide for their children the older they are.

The main exception I can think is family support; having younger grandparents and great grandparents could be an advantage, I guess?

I'm not sure I'd look at a society where people have lots of children so they can put them to work and say "yeah, this is the way society should be!"

Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by jeffreyrogers on Thursday December 01, 2022 @12:12PM (#33819252)
In western countries historically men were typically a bit older than their wife but the wife usually was fairly young still. Definitely way younger than now. I think the average maternal age in the US is close to 30 now. This was a rational arrangement since women had fewer economic opportunities. Now women can do basically everything men can do so they choose to defer pregnancy, which has its own consequences that people are now learning to manage and deal with through IVF, egg freezing, etc.

Interestingly, genetic mutations from the mother are roughly constant regardless of her age. Paternal genetic mutations rise with age. IIRC a 38 year old man's sperm has double the number of mutations a 28 year old man has.

Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by herrrk on Thursday December 01, 2022 @12:20PM (#33819363)
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by jeffreyrogers on Thursday December 01, 2022 @12:27PM (#33819441)
> In Yorkshire in the 14th and 15th centuries, the age range for most brides was between 18 and 22 years and the age of the grooms was similar; rural Yorkshire women tended to marry in their late teens to early twenties while their urban counterparts married in their early to middle twenties. In the 15th century, the average Italian bride was 18 and married a groom 10–12 years her senior. An unmarried Tuscan woman 21 years of age would be seen as past marriageable age, the benchmark for which was 19 years, and easily 97 percent of Florentine women were married by the age of 25 years while 21 years was the average age of a contemporary English bride.

> Ireland's average age of marriage in 1830 was 23.8 for women and 27.47 for men where they had once been about 21 and 25, respectively, and only about 10% of adults remained unmarried;[22] in 1840, they had respectively risen to 24.4 and 27.7;[23][24] in the decades after the Great Famine, the age of marriage had risen to 28–29 for women and 33 for men and as much as a third of Irishmen and a fourth of Irishwomen never married due to chronic economic problems that discouraged early marriage.

Doesn't really contradict what I said, although the age gap between bride and groom was fairly variable (but no country that I'm aware of has a pattern of older bride, younger groom).

Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by wizofaus on Thursday December 01, 2022 @02:21PM (#33821292)
On that last point, isn't that because all eggs are produced in-utero and stored for later use (no new eggs can be produced), whereas sperm is manufactured on demand?
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by jeffreyrogers on Thursday December 01, 2022 @03:35PM (#33822339)
That's my assumption, but I don't know the mechanism by which sperm mutations occur.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by giantg2 on Thursday December 01, 2022 @03:04PM (#33821936)
I mean, maternal genetic mutations aren't strictly age related. However, damage from toxins, other environmental factors, and developmental issues related to hormone levels generally track with age. I wouldn't be surprised to find out paternal fertility issues are truly the same, but that age is a an easy proxy.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by creaturemachine on Thursday December 01, 2022 @12:34PM (#33819544)
Monetarily maybe, but not physically. I'm 42 with a 5-year-old and man do I wish I was doing this in my 30's.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by PakG1 on Thursday December 01, 2022 @02:34PM (#33821479)
Had those times when your back seized up and you couldn't even lie down properly? :) Been there, done that. If only I had developed better exercise habits when younger. Well, better late than never, though that late sometimes feels like never.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by mschuster91 on Thursday December 01, 2022 @12:08PM (#33819187)
> It seems fairly natural that a couple in most societies (current and historical) would be better able to provide for their children the older they are.

When I was born in 1991 and my sister in 1995, a simple police officer and a nurse in half-time could provide for two children with ease, in one of what was even back then one of the most expensive cities in Germany. Today, me (IT worker) and my s/o (public health administration) can barely afford a flat and two cats.

Fuck that shit, we need rent controls, higher wages and higher taxes on the rich. Then people like me are not forced to wait until 35 that they can start having children.

Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by moonchrome on Thursday December 01, 2022 @12:28PM (#33819463)
I was under the impression that programming and IT is very undervalued in Germany, like you're basically earning slightly above average in most cases. At least that's what I gather from two friends who live there.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by mschuster91 on Friday December 02, 2022 @03:25AM (#33828141)
It is an average employment and I'd not even say it's undervalued. We simply don't have the insane amount of VC money that fuels the equally insane US wages in the tech sector - which has both benefits and problems.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by moonchrome on Friday December 02, 2022 @03:45AM (#33828244)
Benefits being that you're barely making rent as a working couple ?
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by vardump on Thursday December 01, 2022 @12:15PM (#33819291)
Rent in Germany is really really cheap. Even in "expensive" cities.

Energy, on the other hand, not so.

Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by dzonga on Thursday December 01, 2022 @12:53PM (#33819839)
actually you need more market based rent. remove restrictions that incentivize people not to build housing. tax the rich on land value - which means not have empty lots build a lot of houses encourage a dynamic market that rewards labor and boom you've achieved low rents, high wages
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by onion2k on Thursday December 01, 2022 @12:10PM (#33819216)
...rational individual choice...

It's a choice in the same sense that I've chosen not to buy a Ferrari because I can't afford one.

Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by dionidium on Thursday December 01, 2022 @02:39PM (#33821543)
This really doesn't make any sense. We are not poorer than our ancestors and they figured it out. People have convinced themselves that the requirements for having children are far beyond what they actually are.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by onion2k on Friday December 02, 2022 @04:06AM (#33828355)
We are not poorer than our ancestors and they figured it out.

Quite a lot of them died in childbirth.

Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by dionidium on Friday December 02, 2022 @12:02PM (#33833177)
Another way in which we are much richer than they were!
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by waboremo on Thursday December 01, 2022 @12:11PM (#33819238)
While true, the desire to push everyone into heavy productivity mode from ages 18-55 are a societal problem, there is also a financial (and educational) problem where solutions to combat the aging fertility problem are often locked behind procedures that cost more than a year's salary for majority of people.

An example of this is that freezing your eggs costs upwards of $30k, and is still viewed as something only very select late 30's successful women do.

Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by moonchrome on Thursday December 01, 2022 @12:24PM (#33819407)
>An example of this is that freezing your eggs costs upwards of $30k, and is still viewed as something only very select late 30's successful women do.

Isn't that also very unreliable ? When we went to IVF clinic they told us that freezing the eggs has much lower chance of them being usable compared to fertilized eggs.

Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by skorpeon87 on Thursday December 01, 2022 @12:33PM (#33819541)
Even if you make egg freezing cheap, it will still have an abysmal success rate (particularly if a woman waits until her 30s to have the eggs freezed), and should rationally be viewed as a hail Mary of last resort. This should not be viewed as the default rational path towards pregnancy, even if it were free. A society which is structured to encourage this path is setting people up for serious disappointment.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by dionidium on Thursday December 01, 2022 @02:38PM (#33821532)
That would suggest that, in fact, it is not the rational choice. People are too precious about having kids. And when I say "people" I mean me. I waited until I was 40. That was stupid. I should have started sooner. Everything would have been fine.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by SoftTalker on Thursday December 01, 2022 @03:20PM (#33822140)
There is also a lot of pressure on women to "have a career" which contributes to them waiting to marry and have kids. It's not really possible to optimize both being a mother and having a career, it's all tradeoffs and those who choose motherhood and a more domestic life are made to feel like they have sacrificed or lost out on something.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by firstfewshells on Thursday December 01, 2022 @04:07PM (#33822767)
And who exactly is putting this pressure on women? Most men would choose a healthy, fertile woman over a career oriented one. I do think it's women that are taking on the pressure themselves in their quest to have it all.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by exitb on Friday December 02, 2022 @01:08AM (#33827381)
Many families couldn’t reach their financial goals with only one spouse working.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by LdSGSgvupDV on Thursday December 01, 2022 @08:05PM (#33825426)
According to divorce rate, I think it is reasonable to choose "have a career" first. At least, it would be financially independent.
Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by dudul on Thursday December 01, 2022 @09:51PM (#33826149)
Do you have examples of how this pressure is implemented?

AFAIK it has been shown many times that "career woman" is absolutely not a trait men find attractive.

Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by SoftTalker on Thursday December 01, 2022 @10:28PM (#33826402)
Well I'm not a woman, so I don't have direct experience. But I think that young girls, for example, are frequently told in school and at home that they can be anything they want, doctors, lawyers, scientists, etc. and that is great, but I think very little is said about being a mother and their biological clock and the tradeoffs that entails, or if it is addressed it is sort of glossed over with a "you can have it all" message.

So girls grow up with a career-oriented mindset, and don't do any careful thinking about what they want, or think about kids/family as something they will do "later" or "when I'm ready" and before they know it they find themselves at 35 years old and unable to get pregnant.

Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by sneak on Thursday December 01, 2022 @04:23PM (#33822979)
It seems to me the rational individual choice (speaking of the planning of the timing of kids, before having them) would be to not have kids at all? Kids take resources away from the individuals who have them.