Why aren’t women having children? Ask men

To be a woman is to know that no matter your circumstances in life, you will be asked about children by more people and on more occasions than you can possibly imagine.

If the answer is yes, follow-ups will include (but will certainly not be limited to): how many? When are you going to start trying? Do you have names picked out? Was the pregnancy planned? Now that you have one when are you going to start trying for the next?

If you don’t want children, you can expect variations on the following: why not? Aren’t you worried you’ll regret it? Don’t you want to experience that kind of love? Who will care for you when you’re old? What does your partner think about your decision? Isn’t that selfish? Did you have a difficult upbringing? Seriously, why don’t you want children?

Whichever category you fall into, if you are a woman these kinds of questions will follow you around for the better part of two decades.

But recently, these queries have been condensed down to just one overriding question: why aren’t women having babies?

Usually, it comes with a tone of concern and frustration, like a hand-wringing mother desperate to make a small child understand that the stove top is not to be touched under any circumstances.

In some ways, it’s a reasonable question. In Australia and many other parts of the world, the declining fertility rate (the number of babies born per women) is now well below the rate of replacement (the number of children needed to be born to keep populations at their current levels), which raises valid questions about the economy, the jobs market, migration, housing, ageing populations and just about every other policy area you can think of..

The problem with the question – and the desperate search for solutions it invariably inspires – is that it is almost never followed up with an equally important counter: why aren’t men having babies?

Thanks to decades of surveys, studies and reports from around the world, we have a detailed understanding of why women are choosing to have fewer children than previous generations. Or none at all.

While it’s a complex, nuanced and deeply personal issue, there are common denominators such as the cost of living, the motherhood penalty, quality of life, environmental concerns and not meeting the right person.

And yet, when you go looking for men’s stories in the data, it quickly becomes apparent that they’ve either been left out of the research entirely or seen as an addendum at best, despite playing an essential role in creating the miracle of life.

“Men are absolutely an afterthought in this space,” d