People forget that there's been a multi generational messaging of preventing women from having kids without economic security; this used to be done by the parents rejecting marriages that didn't bring enough dowry and extreme punishment for extra-marital relationships.

Now contraception has decoupled these things. You can have the relationship you want, and put off children until "sufficient" economic conditions have been reached.

(It is good news that India is at or below replacement rate! The conversation would be very different if in a few decades time India had to find twice as much food and oil!)

It's not just women either. The older the father is the more you get risks for certain things like mental illness in the child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_age_effect

No need to gender this, and I feel like people would be more receptive to the issue if it wasn't. Everybody ages: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12801554/

True - but, honest question that I've always wondered: Do we know the degree of this problem as it relates to whether or not people have kids? I.e. yes, it takes longer to get pregnant, but how much less likely does it become to get pregnant at all?

> Also, women's overall fertility drops off a cliff after 30

Men's too, from 40s up. Not as severe, and not cliff-like in the end like menopause. But it compounds, as the typical couple ages are directly correlated.