Men, Do Your Duty... and bonk for Britain

Why is it always women who are asked to solve falling fertility rates?

On Monday I attended a fascinating event at Portcullis House, organised by the Centre for Social Justice. Titled From Baby Boom to Baby Bust, it involved a panel discussion on why birth rates have dropped globally, chaired by Fraser Nelson and including MP Miriam Cates.

I very much enjoyed the evening, but became agitated by a recurring thesis. During the course people kept blaming women, inadvertently or otherwise, for the birth rate rapidly reducing. The lines were all too familiar: that not enough of us know that our biological clock is ticking; that we need to be educated on fertility rates; and told that motherhood is fun, as we (apparently) tend to have the opposite impression. In the end, I had to ask a question that I knew other women might be thinking too: what about men’s involvement in the birth rate?

Too often the dialogue around fertility involves finger pointing at women like me (aged 34), who are treated as if we are too picky, obsessed with our careers and/ or relaxed about our lifespan. “Silly her; doesn’t she know she can’t have babies when she’s 70!” is the message, one that doesn’t always need to be said in order to be conveyed. There are many reasons, of course, that women aren’t having children - yes, some are ignorant about biology, unrealistic about dating and/ or wrapped up in work - but the problem is treating these as the whole story as to why fertility has dropped. It feels as if women are expected to save humankind alone.

What about the blokes, anyway? A large part of the reason that fertility rates are declining around the world is because they too are putting off having kids. Far from judging them for this, I am envious of their ability to do so and empathise - seeing as many face the same economic hurdles (high housing costs and taxes) as women around my age and younger do. Under these circumstances, who wouldn’t want to put off the enormous lifestyle change that is having a baby? In my view, age 40 or over would be the ideal time to have a child.

The reality, of course, is that biology has other ideas, and ultimately we need attitudes to align among men and women on when to procreate (given our current birth rates, the goal being sooner rather than later). Liberated as much as women are by the pill - making it much easier to forgo commitment with sexual partners - men are dragging their feet more than ever about having children. Anecdotally, almost every woman will know (if they aren’t the person this has happened to themselves) a man who won’t commit or settle down, despite having been in a relationship with a woman for many years. Sometimes they love their girlfriend very much but still think about “lost” romantic opportunities - even when over-overestimating their appeal to other women.

Another male all women know too well, whether experienced first hand or not, is the type who has decided a girlfriend is/ was (having subsequently broken up with her) too “psycho” or “intense” because they brought up the idea of marriage, babies or even a minor commitment. A man may feel under pressure when asked about where a relationship is going - “I thought we were just having fun?”/ “why couldn’t we just leave things the way they were?!” - oblivious to the fact that his girlfriend has been subjected to an equivalent biologically-determined pressure her whole life.

Quite how we inspire attitudinal change among men - to get them to bonk for Britain - is something that could inspire doctorates. Perhaps one thing that might get them on the road to fecundity is to remind them that sperm counts are declining worldwide. Looking at Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood and Robert De Niro, it’s easy to think men can be fathers into their 70s and 80s. The reality is that men’s reproductive capacity has been on an alarming downward trajectory, with sperm counts halving globally in the past 50 years.

An analysis of 27,000 studies, published this year, found that the biggest causes of deterioration of sperm cells were pollution, smoking, certain health conditions and, crucially, age. Speaking of the findings, one author said: “Based on previous research, we expected that the quality of sperm cells starts to deteriorate significantly after age 40, but our meta-analysis suggests that this age could be much higher”. Would it hurt men to know, en masse, that they may be storing up issues through postponing fatherhood? They may be particularly troubled to discover that penis malformation can be the result of declining sperm quality. Can you imagine anything that would get men settling down faster than an awareness campaign - telling them their son might have a deformed penis the more they dither and delay?

In general, we need to start turning the onus onto men as to their role in improving the birth rate. On this point, another way in which we might do this is asking if women are being “too picky” for a reason in choosing a partner. It is often pointed out that there are now more of them than their male counterparts at university as an explanation for why they are less positively inclined towards the current stock of men. Sometimes the covert message is that women must be more “realistic” and even dumb down a bit to restore equilibrium in the dating market. Essentially, they are encouraged to accept their “Mr Collins”.

Make no mistake: to succeed in any market one needs to understand how supply and demand meet. When people overestimate supply, they generally feel and/ or end up short-changed. It may be the case that nowadays people have an inflated sense of what they should expect from, and in, relationships, having been saturated with fairytales and images of “perfect” Hollywood couples. In the same way they might strive for a 10/10 body, thanks to filtered content on Instagram and beautiful celebrities, one can end up with distorted views of the “norm”. Even Bridget Jones Diary - ironically meant to give women a relatable image of singledom in your 30s - sets up expectations that there’s a Mr Darcy for all.

With that said, low global birth rates cannot always be explained by overinflated expectations of the partners available. Large numbers of heterosexual women, and men, are simply subjected to unfavourable market conditions in dating. For instance, China has too many men, Russia too many women (partly behind the historic ‘mail order bride’ phenomenon), and even parts of Britain have imbalances between the sexes. In 2022, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that there were 33 percent more females in their 20s than men living in Wandsworth, and similar patterns can be found in other parts of the country.

These imbalances can greatly shift the balance in one sex’s favour when it comes to setting the market terms (Louise Perry’s book The Case Against The Sexual Revolution delves into this area extensively). One popularised phenomenon is that of the “chad”, a term used to describe the stereotypical alpha male. When it’s estimated that around 20 percent of all female dating app users turn down more than 80 percent of potential male suitors, you can see how this type of man “cleans up” on dating apps - more so if they live in an area where the balance of men to women is unequal. He is then able to set terms less favourable to women, putting off fatherhood and having lots of one night stands, for instance, knowing that if she complains there’s a good supply of women elsewhere.

What can be done about these imbalances? We cannot make Chinese men move to Russia and vice versa, nor have a radical rehaul of Wandsworth’s demographic make up. Perhaps that’s why most narratives focus on the “picky” woman, as it’s far easier to blame her for all that has gone wrong in our dating market, and subsequent birth rates, than tick off the chads, and otherwise, who’ve been delaying fatherhood and dating multiple women at a time.

Consider a radical alternative for some of the dating imbalances we see, though. What if, instead of women having to “date down”, more men (leaving aside the chads) need to raise their game to meet the quality of most women? If women are struggling to find a partner, then why is it their fault necessarily, and not equally men’s, for mass global singledom? And why is it only women who are holding the baby boom up? That is the point I wanted to emphasise on Monday night. Out of two halves of the population, why does one only ever get the blame?