As a biotechnologist, I'm not at all averse in principle to use modern medicine to increase the fertility window, but I think that this solution misses many important drawbacks.
For starter, the fact that parenthood is extremely physical as a job, especially. In the first years. That energy and mental acuity, as well as greater physical strength, that one has in 20s and 30s is really important when raising children. My first daughter was born on my 36th year, the second on my 39th, and while I keep ok-fit... it's hard. Waking up at night, lifting them, being mentally alert, these are things that I feel already ever so worse at now that I'm 39; I do not want to imagine having to do them at 49! Enabling people to have children later does not solve this problem, and many technological solutions that can help (prams, screens, etc) are actually bad for children if overused. As one would as a tired parent.
Modifying society is harder, but potentially much better in terms of end results.
That's a good point and many have said having children gets harder with age. That being said, clearly women are trying to have children later now but can't ...
That is also true, and clearly there is appetite for it (e.g silicon valley companies offering egg freezing as a benefit).
But I still think it's quite barking up the wrong tree in this particular case, as a society.
There are other reforms, I think, that could be easier and cheaper... To give a small example, the UK has a completely broken financing system for childcare as well as recruiting (the number of children a child carer can take on in a nursery is kept legally too low, much lower than in other countries, artificially capping productivity of the sector). It's enraging as this is causing extremely high costs and is literally something that can be changed and deployed at zero direct cost - just change the law!
Interesting and I don’t have big-picture data or policy knowledge…. but I anecdotally got the impression that the UK was childcare Shangri La! I worked for the first stateside office of a UK company that brought over loads of employees even at the lowest levels (so curious how that visa process worked!). They all spoke of companies back home with nurseries (crèches”) on site!
The mat leave policy, imported from back home, was ONE FULL YEAR of leave, with the guarantee that your job will be there when you return. Reduced wages, but wages nonetheless! Company covers some, government pays out too was my understanding.
This benefit was retained for the expat Brits (and those in London we worked closely with) while Americans sitting next to them got the standard “sucks to be you” treatment. The UK policy created more stability and psychological ease for ALL as the company just hires or internally promotes someone to spend a year covering for new mom, who is eased into the role as mom prepares to ease out. Then there was the American policy of letting Mom’s bailiwick decline and career capital fall off a cliff and emailing her while they are still suturing her c-section incision. This is body horror.
Statistically idk if educated Brits are at the exact same level of sub-replacement stats as we are but it was enraging to witness the differences side by side. You will NEVER guess which group had more kids earlier and which group made more trips to planned parenthood and which one dropped out of the workforce when the cost of infant care for twins would render the value of their labor at essentially zero.
I’ve come around from being rabidly pro-abortion. But this sure reminds me of the hypocrisy of yelling “life is sacred,” and “make more babies” and “why are you too selfish to start a family” combined with actively hostile policies and no social support.
Could be a grass is greener kind of thing!!! “Shang-ri La” was probably an overstatement. I was less aware of the details of UK toddler care after moms had returned to work. I don’t know much about that and would be curious how it differs from the US (can it get worse lol?)
I do think the option of taking a full year of leave is amazing beyond my American comprehension. Totally conceivable that they’d push you off a cliff on day 366 though.
And of course no solution will be frictionless. The fact that my former employer would hire (often internal) coverage for mom’s role for one year is an excellent solution! In some more senior roles, however, you’ve just given an ambitious rising star a chance to shake things up and shine in your kingdom… plus a lot can happen in a year so there’s a lot of catch up (and you’re still a new parent with a small kiddo now adjusting to childcare).
If we develop technology to extend fertility, might it not also be possible to keep people buff in their 60s and 70s? I wouldn’t mind radical life extension to, say, 250, but not if I have to be 80 for 170 years.
We *could*, there are certainly people trying, but it's much more complex then increasing the fertility window. The latter is a proven set of technologies already in the clinic with a multi decade track record, whereas the former is still completely speculative and not even at the proof of concept level yet.
That's why I think that fiddling with laws and economic incentives is an easier and quicker proposition.
On the other other hand, though, even countries that invest a lot in childcare while incentivising the return of women to the workplace are seeing a decline in fertility (see: France, Scandinavia), so ... It's complicated, I guess?
If one’s solution to any contemporary social problem is “technology will let us live healthy and fit for 150+ years then you are fantasizing in the realm of science fiction rather than proposing any real solution.
All good points and in addition— the older you give birth, the older your parents and in-laws will be. A 50- or 60-something grandpa can be a super helpful caregiver. Not so as they get into their 70s. This is a loss not only for the parents but for the potential grandparents themselves, who miss out on having meaningful relationships with their grandchildren.
Good essay. I agree with some key aspects of your framing about greedy jobs and rewarding work, and If we could technologically facilitate advanced-maternal-age pregnancies without popularizing them, that would be ideal. Unfortunately, if culture is as intertial as you suggest, innovation enabling later pregnancies will beget even more extreme delaying, and women needing to postpone childbirth into their 40s to protect any shot at securing high-status and meaningful work sounds nightmarish (and potentially deadly, if it entails a surge in maternal mortality rates).
Many of society's current maladies can be ascribed to the overbearing credentialist arms race for high-quality careers pushing back life milestones too far, and the only backstop preventing further slippage is the biological ceiling on fertility; once this is circumvented, the contest for high-end positions will extend the meritocratic/educational prelude to elite careers another ten years or whatever, and our situation will further deteriorate. We have good reasons to shorten the on-ramp to meaningful work; proliferation of more advanced fertility-window-altering tech will culminate in elongating that on-ramp instead.
I don’t think that extending women’s fertility window would change much in terms of the time it takes to sort out the winners and losers in greedy careers (or tournament careers, or whatever) because men already dominate those careers and they don’t have the same limited fertility window. That is to say, those careers already are as stretched out as they going get, or if they do get stretched out more, it won’t have anything to do with anyone’s fertility.
I’m not sure I see how your comment addresses the fundamental logic of the arms race though. What OP is referring to is a collective action problem wherein ever-increasing investments are required to attain top positions in competitive fields. Increasing people’s ability to compete just means they will compete that much harder.
Fair point. Maybe I should put it like this: the biological ceiling on fertility seems like the most promising potential limitation on society's heretofore runaway credentialism. While certain high-paying careers and extreme professional outcomes are male-dominated, post-secondary education is mostly female and something like MD-PhD programs are evenly split now, so I'm doubtful that men compose a majority of participants in the professional-managerial class launch sequence these days, let alone such an overwhelming share that fertility issues are an irrelevant factor. I also suspect that much of the driving force behind our decades-long educational and meritocratic ramp-up was the inclusion of female competition in these labor markets, so the addition of new fertility-extending tech could catalyze further one-upping.
As a woman academic scientist PI, I am exactly the demographic you are talking about. I got divorced at 30 (in part due to pressures from the constant relocation from my career) and remarried at 34, started trying to have a baby at 36, and recently miscarried. I have also dealt with fertility issues due to anovulatory PCOS.
One point I did not see you discuss much, is while children are a lot to care for and the lion-share of childcare and domestic work is often shouldered by women, this is potentially mitigable by culture with dads being more involved *eventually*. What people seem less comfortable discussing is that there is an inherent inequality in biology that doesn't make men a bigger role even an option as a solution to an acute problem you break down that occurs with this severe disruption that happens at critical professional phases. Pregnancy, postpartum, and breastfeeding are just not the same disruption to men as they are to women, and in this roughly 2 year period, there is zero way to make this equal, even if it is possible to have a more equitable split the roles of mothers and fathers in raising small children once the kids reach toddler age and older.
As a woman, there is really nothing that men can fathom when it comes to dealing with first trimester fatigue and hormonal craziness. There's nothing quite they can experience that is like miscarrying and needing to physically and emotionally recover while soldiering on with a cloud grief that is amplified from the sudden withdrawal of hormones. There is no burden similar to doing egg retrievals or other fertility treatments and needing to go in for blood draws/monitoring daily and dealing with high doses of hormones that make you feel insane. There is nothing equivalent to pumping. Men don't have to live with developing temporary diabetes or mobility issues as part of a routine stage of life. And I haven't even gotten to the postpartum or infant phase.
At my uni (in Australia) we have really generous parental leave where most women take 9-12 months off rather than the paltry 3 months in the US (where I am originally from). Still it's a big question mark how you manage PhD student mentorship, papers, momentum building, and grants in your absence. Usually it relies upon building up a certain level of reputation and group self-sufficiency (akin to the level groups have when academics are established enough to go on sabbatical) along with leaning on colleagues and collaborations. If you go on maternity and miss a grant round, that can affect your trajectory for years. And if things function the way they do in other countries like the US, when you are only gone for 3 months, that is literal insanity in terms of how not recovered your body and mind is at that stage of postpartum and how dependent babies that young are on their mothers.
Even if men take primary carer's leave (which DOES help build equality and should be encouraged), it is just not the same as a 2+ year disruption to your mind and body for each child endured by mothers. This is indeed a brief period of time in the scheme of life, but is pretty acute when you are establishing your lab, even if you have managed to push having kids into your late 30s.
Many women make it work, but it's hard and it's also common that many don't get the right lucky break and can't seem to ever regain steam. Some pregnancies are harder than others, and the disruption can go on for a while if there are any bumps in the road to conceiving, if there are miscarriages/stillbirths, if you have a child with health issues, a premie who needs significant NICU time, postpartum depression, or any number of situations that life throws at you.
I personally really want to be a mother and I don't care about the disruption to my career--it's something I accept as just something that is. But despite understanding all this intellectually, the few aspects I have experienced thus far (which is fertility treatment, first trimester, and miscarrying) have made it clear to me that it is impossible really to understand until you are in it.
PCOS means your body has trouble ovulating and your periods are absent/irregular, which certainly creates some issues with trying to conceive! In my case I have lean PCOS (normal BMI, normal fasting blood sugar, and even normal testosterone in my case), and its unclear if I am insulin resistant or not but if I do it is completely subclinical/well managed so losing weight and many of the usual less invasive treatments are not relevant. But strangely metformin seems to help me ovulate more regularly? When I do cycle consistently my cycle is typically 38-40 days which means that I don't have as many opportunities to hit a fertile window as most women.
Since you *can* conceive naturally when you have PCOS the question is how much time do you give it and do you want to try some less invasive stuff first (e.g. try metformin, do ovulation induction/IUI or jump straight to IVF, etc.). In my case it ended up taking us 7 months from diagnosis after not having a period for 6 months coming off birth control to conceive. In this time, there were a lot of bumps in the road and then I had a first trimester missed miscarriage (very common for 36 year olds due to age related aneuploidies, but your chance of MC is elevated further with PCOS) that resulted in a D&C at 10 weeks. Who knows how long it will take to conceive again. We started having unprotected sex when I was 35 and at this point if I'm lucky I will have my first child at 37 at the earliest (but likely closer to 38-39).
By bumps in the road: my experience is my egg retrievals were unexpectedly not as successful because I oddly need higher ovarian stimulation levels than most women with my biomarkers. When you have PCOS you tend to have a high antral follicle count and high AMH (antimullerian hormone, a marker of egg egg reserve), and indeed, my AMH is absurdly high for my age and I have tons of follicles. Because of this, egg retrievals are usually highly successful for women with PCOS (although egg quality tends tends to be a bigger issue). This puts you at high risk for ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). Well, surprise, my body needs WAY higher levels of ovarian stimulation for successful egg retrievals than would have been even remotely responsible to give me without seeing how I reacted. Thus, I had 2 not successful egg retrievals where few eggs reached maturity and my estrogen never spiked to OHSS danger zone. Now we know for next time. Except to do two attempts at egg retrieval, that ended up taking nearly 4 months. After that we took a break for a few months and I got pregnant naturally surprisingly, and then miscarried. So back to square one!
You just have less runway to iterate if it takes longer for you to conceive and/or if you need fertility treatment (which is often a process of trial and error in and of itself as we all have unique biology). Typically for many fertility treatments, you need to time it around your cycle/hormone levels which is tricky when your cycle is long or irregular or normalizing after miscarriage or fertility treatment. A full IVF cycle from consult to embryo transfer with PGT testing usually takes about 4 months if your egg retrieval works well the first time.
If you have PCOS and want kids, I would recommend giving yourself some runway, whether this is starting at 32-33 instead of 35, or banking 20+ oocytes. Because egg quality is often an issue with PCOS, you want to be on the higher end of statistics for your age, which may mean 2-3 retrievals. In my case I had no clue until I was 35 that I had anovulatory PCOS, because I had been on the pill for over a decade (in retrospect, to manage painful/heavy irregular periods, symptoms of PCOS, and the pill is one of the best ways to manage PCOS symptoms if you aren't trying to conceive).
LOL wow this got way longer than I anticipated. You have enough of a technical background I could go on and on about all the bizarre things I have discovered about my individual fertility.
The TL;DR is if you don't ovulate regularly, it's harder to get pregnant. If you need fertility treatment, it may be smooth sailing (PCOS tends to respond to fertility treatment well compared to many other fertility issues) or it may be a process. Impossible to know unless you try. We also have an elevated risk of miscarriage which gets worse as we age. Most women who have PCOS I know are eventually able to have the family size they want (provided they wanted ~1-3 kids) but it takes them longer to get there.
I suppose some might say the answer is surrogacy to make the male and female parents roles both donation of gametes for someone else to gestate. This is obviously problematic because SOME woman's body needs to be involved in this stage. For academics in particular, there is the affordability issue even if you can shove aside ethical concerns. And for me personally, despite the challenges, I think the notion we can grow a human inside our bodies is pretty freaking cool and I wouldn't want to miss out, career consequences be damned. Some things in life are more important.
I don’t know how true it is (because you cannot trust a company’s PR) but I remember getting tours at big consultancies in the US when I was a grad student, and the consultancies emphasizing that they were in the process of creating partnership tracks that took the toll of childbearing into account for women. Now, while they certainly were doing this because they believed it to be the right thing to do, they also were doing it because they believed it would make them more money. They wanted to recruit and retain the best talent, and that meant attracting and retaining women even through their childbearing years. I think that they also recognized that there were a number of women who would make great partners (better than the typical male partner) but weren’t willing to stick around and put in the countless hours necessary to make partner, when they could leave for roles with fewer hours, an immediate and large salary bump, and also more room for advancement and growth, even if ultimately the remuneration would be lower than making partner. I have no idea how much hot air this was, as I think only one person I went to school with has made partner, even though we are more than a decade out from graduation (I blame older generations who won’t retire). Anyway, the theory seemed solid, but it is probably only something that works with the intersection of the private sector and careers with sufficient balance between supply and demand that workers have some bargaining power.
There *is* actually a way to graduate high school early in California already... It’s called “Venture Independent Study” but so many parents refuse to let their kids do it, because they think it’ll harm their chances of getting into college
I don't know if these exist in California, but I've also heard of something called "dual enrollment" programs that let you start college a year early. Apparently, while still enrolled in high school, you take college classes in place of regular high school classes, and the classes end up counting towards both high school and college graduation. You still technically spend four years in high school and two or four years in college, but one of the years counts for both.
My High School / local Jr College offered a similar option in Illinois. I graduated with a BS in Econ in 3 years while taking a normal course load, and was able to spend a semester studying abroad.
Wow, I spent my twenties with such severe anxiety that I was unable to work or go to school full time, or do much of anything as substantial as what my peers did. I have the ambition but no plans to realize anything remotely close to pursuing a science degree, or professional school, etc. I only work 18 hours a week at a preschool as an office assistant, but I have dreams of making a big impact on the world in a naive, idealist way. I wish I had the same struggles as the women you talk about, since I think they are blessed with having kids and having successful careers. Everyone tells me I have time, but I’m 30 and have been putting pressure on myself to have kids within 5 years (even though my boyfriend and I have no plans to get married and have kids anytime soon). I refuse to leave it up to biology and my relatively advanced age to determine my kids’ chances for a meaningful existence. I have applied to full time jobs in library science, but I feel like I’m headed down a treacherous path with that career field. I know I can’t go back and change the past, but I wish someone could step in like a fairy godmother and give me the answers I’ve been seeking. Has anyone felt this way before?
I like to learn things casually, through watching YouTube videos and reading books and Substack, but I am concerned about my ability to master a serious skill without the structure of a formal learning environment and supportive people around me. I have a language processing disorder so I need feedback from other people to know that I am interpreting situations accurately. As for skills, I am proficient in basic tools like Microsoft Office and clear, concise communication, but I honestly have no technical skills or expertise that require mastery of a specialized field like library science. I have worked in a public library for years shelving books and working the circulation desk, but I had to leave that job because they couldn’t provide me more than 1 weekend shift a month, so I couldn’t always learn on the job. I want to get my master’s degree but I don’t see how that’s even possible given my lack of clarity on what I actually want to do with my life.
I think in your situation thinking about how you wanna change the world/ do smth very impactful is the wrong approach. I'm gonna be honest. You should try and train yourself in something practical that's closest to your natural abilities and will get you a job. You should optimize for a combo of salary/not hating the job/ realistic to train in it. Eg you probably can't become a nuclear physicist now. Becoming good at that job will
Give you intrinsic satisfaction (I should mention you should probably also look for a field where you can progress). People I think overrate "finding their calling". Just doing smth and becoming good at it will make you like it. Ofc there's innate talent. Try to match smth practical with good salary and advancement prospects to your talents. The closest thing there is out there. It doesn't have to sound super fancy or change the world. Just do it well.
This isn't the advice I'd give anyone. I think people can learn physics on their own. But that requires extraordinary discipline and mental fortitude. So you should be realistic abt that.
Get urself checked for ADHD/ anxiety etc. meds can help a lot.
But for the moment, just do smth practical you can progress in. Don't think abt changing the world. In 10 yrs if you become the best librarian or best teacher or best paralegal or whatever it is that you choose you'll have the chance to contribute to the community you're in. But if you're just stuck not doing anything and wondering, you won't.
I don't know abt the future of librarian as a job -- you should consider that considering AI whether people still read physical books etc. but there are related jobs like paralegal, teaching, admin assistant, executive assistant etc etc I don't know exactly if you went to uni or not. But there must be a sort of office job kind of thing that is the best option for you given your circumstances. You start from there even if not glamorous and try to do be the best and then you will feel satisfied by that!
Having raised 4 children in my 30s, if I would change one thing, it would have been to start earlier, because childrearing is physically taxing, and having 3+ young children at once is far more taxing than having only 1 or 2. Industrial societies don't replace themselves; we need a lot more families with 3+ children if those societies are to survive long term. Extending women's fertility to higher ages is therefore likely a dead-end without currently speculative rejuvination technologies, which are likely only to induce longer competitive cycles in careers.
The answer rather obviously, is to "extend" women's fertility earlier - that is, use it earlier. It would be nice if that has a lower career penalty, but there is likely a lower bound.
I wouldn't consider 'Society is fixed, biology is mutable' to be underrated. I might be an outlier here, but it it is a very compelling perspective on psychiatry and public health.
I find the idea that high school should be shorter rather amusing, because I would make the opposite change - more youth should take 5 years rather than 4. In my part of the world, high school was (formerly) usually 5 years for the university-bound, and IMO, the longer period was better for at least 2/3 of us. In nearby Quebec, high school has a 3 year stage followed by a local 2-year junior-college-like stage, which is effectively similar.
The longer high school allows for more electives (especially for the STEM-bound) and a more rounded education in a lower-pressure environment while living at home. More opportunities for co-ops too. For the kids that didn't excel during COVID, a 5th year would also be helpful.
There is so much growing up to do when 17/18, and many benefit from doing so at home.
I see it with my own teens too - 2/4 of them should take 5 years, although because a 5th year now faces social stigma, it won't happen.
NOTE: I'm not advocating against flexibility, especially for the truly most gifted. I have an uncle who is world-renowned in his field, who finished high school at 13 and was an MD by 18. That was great for him.
“But technological advances that extend women’s fertility windows might give women the option to invest in their careers in their thirties and have children later. A hundred years from now, women having children well into their forties may be as commonplace as married women and mothers in the workforce are today.”
I’m somewhat inclined to agree but I think there is a fallacy most of us fall victim to, where we assume that technological innovation follows a consistent, linear trajectory. I mean, owing to advances in computers in the 1960s people thought AI image processing could be accomplished within the decade, and they were obviously wrong. I just don’t think we can take for granted the pace of recent scientific breakthroughs and assume they will continue at the same consistent pace in perpetuity.
I also suspect that to some extent we underestimate the inherent limitations of engineering the human body. It’s not like a semiconductor, which we can create and modify at will. It’s more like trying to fundamentally alter a natural ecosystem and have it still function effectively.
While extending female fertility is a promising solution, I can’t help but feel that having children only at 30 or 35 is somewhat depressing (at least for me, do those career-oriented child-wanting women think so too?). In my early 20s, I already find the typical childless young adulthood—focused on enjoying life and climbing the corporate ladder—less exciting and meaningful than people claim. That’s part of why I want children early; I feel that raising a family offers a deeper sense of purpose.
What I mean is, I find it difficult to understand how people, if they truly have a strong desire for children, postpone it until their late 30s. I can only assume that many feel conflicted between career and family, ultimately prioritizing their professional lives because society assigns more status to career success. This applies to both men and women. Or a simpler answer is that, in our society, people are conditioned not to think seriously about partnering until their late 20s and only consider having kids after being in a serious relationship for a few years. Postponing kids and ending up childless seems to be a natural result.
That's why I think while biotechnology is great, we should change the cultural expectation around when to marry and have kids. While society is not outright anti-child, it is ambiguous toward children to the point of ignoring the topic and thus discouraging people from thinking seriously about it.
Ruxandra, you call out the different paths forward: policy and infrastructure changes (flexible work policies, child care support enable women to pursue fulfilling/boundary pushing careers or careers), science advances (extending fertility from the biological perspective), and touch on cultural changes (men stepping in more).
To me, it makes sense to continue pushing on all fronts. Speaking to the cultural piece, there needs to be more creativity around family structure, which expands childrearing from a task for two isolated individuals to what it has been for thousands of years, and still is beyond the western world: the community's shared responsibility. This reframes the conversation from women's careers vs. men's careers or "greedy jobs" vs. "non-greedy jobs". Some people do want those pharmacy jobs, and want to prioritize raising children, while others want an intense project to focus on.
I'm surprised by the type of pushback from readers on what is to me, an uncontroversial take. We should never assume to know what the biological or technological limits will be, nor should we assume that expanding women's choices will lead to more harm than good.
The pushback is because this isn't just theoretical. It's not just about where biological and technological limits fall in the future. This affects women's decisions TODAY and I don't want women making them based on false promises.
False promises is too harsh, I'm not sure how else to say it.
I'm seeing too many women thinking they don't have to make that difficult choice anymore (or delay children for other reasons), they can freeze their eggs and problem solved. That's just not true. I want all young women with the decision to delay in front of them to be fully informed and recognize the full implications.
Yes, I really appreciate that. :) And I love when writers engage with their readers.
I'm not meaning to come off on you. I shared in another comment some about why this issue is very emotional for me. I've been increasingly frustrated with the conversation around it and you gave me an outlet to express that. I may not be doing it very well.
I believe that it still happens sometimes in China today. I have definitely heard of women lying about being married during job interviews so that they wouldn’t be automatically rejected.
I am reading, re-reading and taking fast notes. Excellent points raised that do need to be more front and centre in those Women@ conversations, and not only there. Thank you for sharing this research!
We need a form of feminism that cares more about improving women's lives than making them more similar to men. More people like Semmelweis , less DEI trainings
Women are half the population, so their idea of 'improving women's lives' is going to vary quite a bit. Does that mean letting them stay home with the kids or letting them climb the career ladder, to take one familiar example?
How about giving women all the information and options when they're young to help them make the decisions that are right for them as individuals?
Why not make it our goal to support women in their own decisions (be it climbing the career ladder or staying at home) rather than making recommendations based on the goal of closing the gender wage gap?
Right, there's a huge range of what "improving women's lives" would be, and it's often (but not always) somewhat similar to what the woman in question thinks *her* ideal life would be, so you have trad women trying to advocate for making family formation easier and feminists advocating for closing career gaps. (Which was my point. ;) )
Of course like yourself one could be in the middle, but people in the middle are much less likely to join political arguments in general.
Great article. I especially like the idea of finishing high-school earlier. it seems that a lot of society is set up to waste time during the important years.
Another solution, apart from extending the fertility window, is providing really affordable childcare, and (people will yell at me) maybe lower the expectations from parenting - I keep seeing posts about how parents should entertain their kids at all times, as if being bored is detrimental somehow.
On the one side of extending the fertility window, it will fight the wage gap, on the other, if the time between generations will increase even more, idk if it'll even help the TFR.
(also, I don't think TFR rates mainly decrease because of women in the workforce, see Israel for a counter example)
I digress, but I wonder if most women agree with me that the main reason to want to have fewer/later kids is the pregnancy itself, and therefore artificial wombs are the real answer.
“At the moment, one’s 30s are an important time for career advancement *and* also when women’s fertility starts to decline.”
Women’s fertility peaks about 22 and declines linearly for about the next two decades.
I work with a load of high-IQ, competent women in their 30s and 40s with young children who have zero interest in their work following them home. They richly enjoy their time spent with their children and have no curiosity about their day job beyond the necessary.
"I work with a load of high-IQ, competent women in their 30s and 40s with young children who have zero interest in their work following them home. They richly enjoy their time spent with their children and have no curiosity about their day job beyond the necessary."
Not to speak for the author, but I think her point is that, if these women are in Greedy Careers, then the fact that rewards--both remuneration and accomplishment--are Pareto distributed means that the odds are high that they are going to be outcompeted by their childless and/or male peers that can and will devote 60-80hrs/wk to that work. I can think of female outliers whose success is counter to that trend in my own field, but they are more 'exceptions that prove the rule' than anything else.
Of course, if we're not talking about a Greedy Career, then the above does not apply, obviously.
No need to spread false information. Fertility does not decline "linearly" over two decades. It declines virtually not at all til age 30...goes down maybe 5%, which is insignificant. From 30 to 35 there is a slightly increased decline, but still not by much and most women will have no trouble at all getting pregnant -- if they do they have issues they would have had them earlier too, bc it only declines maybe 15% max as a result of age. It really only increases rapidly after 35, in particular falling off a cliff at 38, and being close to impossible naturally after age 42ish.
These stats are easy to look up, and people need to be clear. I know LOTS of women with unintended pregnancies at ages 35 to 40 that occurred because they were misled in thinking pregnancy was way more difficult and unlikely at those ages than it actually is, so they became very lax with birth control or stopped using it entirely, under the mistaken belief it was no longer necessary.
One of the problems here is that in the past, women did not purposely prevent pregnancy until such a later age, so they would've discovered if they had their own fertility issues earlier. And most of them didn't, and often got their tubes tied or received IUDs AFTER they were done having their kids, in their late 20s or early 30s. Now the pattern is opposite where they don't even go off birth control or get their IUD removed til their 30s. Anyway, bottom line is that there is close to zero age-related decline in ability to get pregnant through age 30, and very little through age 35, but after that it drops off very rapidly, particularly at age 38 where it goes off a cliff.
Yes - and the main thing is : will I be able to conceive if I try ? I don't think most ppl mind having a kid after 7 months of trying vs 2. And even at 38 or so most most women can conceive
I really think one of the issues in delaying is that women who have non-age related fertility issues won't discover it earlier. Everyone I knew who had an issue in or needed IVF had a long standing issue the whole time and just didn't know it, in fact most discovered it in their 20s. Then on the other side of things, I know a LOT of women who got pregnant at 39 or 40 when they *did not want to be and thought they were done* for the exact opposite reason, which is that they thought it was way less likely than it actually was, and so just got careless with birth control.
But see I live in a place where it's fairly normal to have kids young and plenty did so before or during grad school (which is not typical anywhere else in the US, I don't think). Most of the female lawyers I know had their first kid before they graduated law school. And lots of them had their last -- not on purpose! -- at 40ish. You can't underestimate how important it is for their male peers to be on board with this. I don't think that outside of Utah you have many young men willing to become fathers before their wife has finished schoolvor started work, but here that's considered very normal. It definitely is for them, most of them have kids before they finish up school and start working too. That requires quite a bit of confidence though, that things are going to go okay, that you'll get and keep your good job, and be able to bear all that plus pay off student loans.
Right and like I said, declines virtually not at all the next decade. You are talking about a difference of like getting pregnant in 3 months versus 2, it is not significant. It is only after 38 that it declines very sharply, but even then, as she pointed out, most women who don't have a pre-existing fertility issue that she would have had at 22 as well, will still get pregnant. Just may take 6 or 7 months instead of 2. Then after 42 is when it becomes very unlikely to happen at all.
Not really, its like saying it'll take you 3 months to get pregnant at 30 and 2 months at 22, and that's not a significant difference to anyone. As opposed to what you said, which is blatantly false. Spreading falsehoods is not helpful, in either direction. Also 3 times as much of something is a 300% difference. The difference in fertility between 22 and 30 is less than a 10% difference, meaning you exaggerated by a factor of 30.
“Also 3 times as much of something is a 300% difference”
It’s a 200% difference. And I was making an analogy.
Chance of getting pregnant per unit of unprotected intercourse peaks at 22 and declines after. You can define fertility your own way if you like. I’m happy with mine.
As a biotechnologist, I'm not at all averse in principle to use modern medicine to increase the fertility window, but I think that this solution misses many important drawbacks.
For starter, the fact that parenthood is extremely physical as a job, especially. In the first years. That energy and mental acuity, as well as greater physical strength, that one has in 20s and 30s is really important when raising children. My first daughter was born on my 36th year, the second on my 39th, and while I keep ok-fit... it's hard. Waking up at night, lifting them, being mentally alert, these are things that I feel already ever so worse at now that I'm 39; I do not want to imagine having to do them at 49! Enabling people to have children later does not solve this problem, and many technological solutions that can help (prams, screens, etc) are actually bad for children if overused. As one would as a tired parent.
Modifying society is harder, but potentially much better in terms of end results.
That's a good point and many have said having children gets harder with age. That being said, clearly women are trying to have children later now but can't ...
That is also true, and clearly there is appetite for it (e.g silicon valley companies offering egg freezing as a benefit).
But I still think it's quite barking up the wrong tree in this particular case, as a society.
There are other reforms, I think, that could be easier and cheaper... To give a small example, the UK has a completely broken financing system for childcare as well as recruiting (the number of children a child carer can take on in a nursery is kept legally too low, much lower than in other countries, artificially capping productivity of the sector). It's enraging as this is causing extremely high costs and is literally something that can be changed and deployed at zero direct cost - just change the law!
Interesting and I don’t have big-picture data or policy knowledge…. but I anecdotally got the impression that the UK was childcare Shangri La! I worked for the first stateside office of a UK company that brought over loads of employees even at the lowest levels (so curious how that visa process worked!). They all spoke of companies back home with nurseries (crèches”) on site!
The mat leave policy, imported from back home, was ONE FULL YEAR of leave, with the guarantee that your job will be there when you return. Reduced wages, but wages nonetheless! Company covers some, government pays out too was my understanding.
This benefit was retained for the expat Brits (and those in London we worked closely with) while Americans sitting next to them got the standard “sucks to be you” treatment. The UK policy created more stability and psychological ease for ALL as the company just hires or internally promotes someone to spend a year covering for new mom, who is eased into the role as mom prepares to ease out. Then there was the American policy of letting Mom’s bailiwick decline and career capital fall off a cliff and emailing her while they are still suturing her c-section incision. This is body horror.
Statistically idk if educated Brits are at the exact same level of sub-replacement stats as we are but it was enraging to witness the differences side by side. You will NEVER guess which group had more kids earlier and which group made more trips to planned parenthood and which one dropped out of the workforce when the cost of infant care for twins would render the value of their labor at essentially zero.
I’ve come around from being rabidly pro-abortion. But this sure reminds me of the hypocrisy of yelling “life is sacred,” and “make more babies” and “why are you too selfish to start a family” combined with actively hostile policies and no social support.
hmmm... this is not what I hear from families with kids in UK
Could be a grass is greener kind of thing!!! “Shang-ri La” was probably an overstatement. I was less aware of the details of UK toddler care after moms had returned to work. I don’t know much about that and would be curious how it differs from the US (can it get worse lol?)
I do think the option of taking a full year of leave is amazing beyond my American comprehension. Totally conceivable that they’d push you off a cliff on day 366 though.
And of course no solution will be frictionless. The fact that my former employer would hire (often internal) coverage for mom’s role for one year is an excellent solution! In some more senior roles, however, you’ve just given an ambitious rising star a chance to shake things up and shine in your kingdom… plus a lot can happen in a year so there’s a lot of catch up (and you’re still a new parent with a small kiddo now adjusting to childcare).
If we develop technology to extend fertility, might it not also be possible to keep people buff in their 60s and 70s? I wouldn’t mind radical life extension to, say, 250, but not if I have to be 80 for 170 years.
We *could*, there are certainly people trying, but it's much more complex then increasing the fertility window. The latter is a proven set of technologies already in the clinic with a multi decade track record, whereas the former is still completely speculative and not even at the proof of concept level yet.
That's why I think that fiddling with laws and economic incentives is an easier and quicker proposition.
On the other other hand, though, even countries that invest a lot in childcare while incentivising the return of women to the workplace are seeing a decline in fertility (see: France, Scandinavia), so ... It's complicated, I guess?
I think in Scandinavia decline in fertility is mostly among lower SeS see Anna rotkrich
If one’s solution to any contemporary social problem is “technology will let us live healthy and fit for 150+ years then you are fantasizing in the realm of science fiction rather than proposing any real solution.
All good points and in addition— the older you give birth, the older your parents and in-laws will be. A 50- or 60-something grandpa can be a super helpful caregiver. Not so as they get into their 70s. This is a loss not only for the parents but for the potential grandparents themselves, who miss out on having meaningful relationships with their grandchildren.
Good essay. I agree with some key aspects of your framing about greedy jobs and rewarding work, and If we could technologically facilitate advanced-maternal-age pregnancies without popularizing them, that would be ideal. Unfortunately, if culture is as intertial as you suggest, innovation enabling later pregnancies will beget even more extreme delaying, and women needing to postpone childbirth into their 40s to protect any shot at securing high-status and meaningful work sounds nightmarish (and potentially deadly, if it entails a surge in maternal mortality rates).
Many of society's current maladies can be ascribed to the overbearing credentialist arms race for high-quality careers pushing back life milestones too far, and the only backstop preventing further slippage is the biological ceiling on fertility; once this is circumvented, the contest for high-end positions will extend the meritocratic/educational prelude to elite careers another ten years or whatever, and our situation will further deteriorate. We have good reasons to shorten the on-ramp to meaningful work; proliferation of more advanced fertility-window-altering tech will culminate in elongating that on-ramp instead.
(I have an essay inveighing against subsidies for egg freezing that explores this stuff in greater detail if anyone is interested: https://unboxedthoughts.substack.com/p/feminisms-refusal-to-save-humanity)
That's something I fear too, actually and it's a good point
I don’t think that extending women’s fertility window would change much in terms of the time it takes to sort out the winners and losers in greedy careers (or tournament careers, or whatever) because men already dominate those careers and they don’t have the same limited fertility window. That is to say, those careers already are as stretched out as they going get, or if they do get stretched out more, it won’t have anything to do with anyone’s fertility.
I’m not sure I see how your comment addresses the fundamental logic of the arms race though. What OP is referring to is a collective action problem wherein ever-increasing investments are required to attain top positions in competitive fields. Increasing people’s ability to compete just means they will compete that much harder.
Fair point. Maybe I should put it like this: the biological ceiling on fertility seems like the most promising potential limitation on society's heretofore runaway credentialism. While certain high-paying careers and extreme professional outcomes are male-dominated, post-secondary education is mostly female and something like MD-PhD programs are evenly split now, so I'm doubtful that men compose a majority of participants in the professional-managerial class launch sequence these days, let alone such an overwhelming share that fertility issues are an irrelevant factor. I also suspect that much of the driving force behind our decades-long educational and meritocratic ramp-up was the inclusion of female competition in these labor markets, so the addition of new fertility-extending tech could catalyze further one-upping.
Yes it’s a good point I Need to respond to a lot of points and save the good ones somewhere
As a woman academic scientist PI, I am exactly the demographic you are talking about. I got divorced at 30 (in part due to pressures from the constant relocation from my career) and remarried at 34, started trying to have a baby at 36, and recently miscarried. I have also dealt with fertility issues due to anovulatory PCOS.
One point I did not see you discuss much, is while children are a lot to care for and the lion-share of childcare and domestic work is often shouldered by women, this is potentially mitigable by culture with dads being more involved *eventually*. What people seem less comfortable discussing is that there is an inherent inequality in biology that doesn't make men a bigger role even an option as a solution to an acute problem you break down that occurs with this severe disruption that happens at critical professional phases. Pregnancy, postpartum, and breastfeeding are just not the same disruption to men as they are to women, and in this roughly 2 year period, there is zero way to make this equal, even if it is possible to have a more equitable split the roles of mothers and fathers in raising small children once the kids reach toddler age and older.
As a woman, there is really nothing that men can fathom when it comes to dealing with first trimester fatigue and hormonal craziness. There's nothing quite they can experience that is like miscarrying and needing to physically and emotionally recover while soldiering on with a cloud grief that is amplified from the sudden withdrawal of hormones. There is no burden similar to doing egg retrievals or other fertility treatments and needing to go in for blood draws/monitoring daily and dealing with high doses of hormones that make you feel insane. There is nothing equivalent to pumping. Men don't have to live with developing temporary diabetes or mobility issues as part of a routine stage of life. And I haven't even gotten to the postpartum or infant phase.
At my uni (in Australia) we have really generous parental leave where most women take 9-12 months off rather than the paltry 3 months in the US (where I am originally from). Still it's a big question mark how you manage PhD student mentorship, papers, momentum building, and grants in your absence. Usually it relies upon building up a certain level of reputation and group self-sufficiency (akin to the level groups have when academics are established enough to go on sabbatical) along with leaning on colleagues and collaborations. If you go on maternity and miss a grant round, that can affect your trajectory for years. And if things function the way they do in other countries like the US, when you are only gone for 3 months, that is literal insanity in terms of how not recovered your body and mind is at that stage of postpartum and how dependent babies that young are on their mothers.
Even if men take primary carer's leave (which DOES help build equality and should be encouraged), it is just not the same as a 2+ year disruption to your mind and body for each child endured by mothers. This is indeed a brief period of time in the scheme of life, but is pretty acute when you are establishing your lab, even if you have managed to push having kids into your late 30s.
Many women make it work, but it's hard and it's also common that many don't get the right lucky break and can't seem to ever regain steam. Some pregnancies are harder than others, and the disruption can go on for a while if there are any bumps in the road to conceiving, if there are miscarriages/stillbirths, if you have a child with health issues, a premie who needs significant NICU time, postpartum depression, or any number of situations that life throws at you.
I personally really want to be a mother and I don't care about the disruption to my career--it's something I accept as just something that is. But despite understanding all this intellectually, the few aspects I have experienced thus far (which is fertility treatment, first trimester, and miscarrying) have made it clear to me that it is impossible really to understand until you are in it.
Thanks for sharing this and I'm so so sorry. I have PCOS too. How has that impacted your fertility if you don't mind me asking?
PCOS means your body has trouble ovulating and your periods are absent/irregular, which certainly creates some issues with trying to conceive! In my case I have lean PCOS (normal BMI, normal fasting blood sugar, and even normal testosterone in my case), and its unclear if I am insulin resistant or not but if I do it is completely subclinical/well managed so losing weight and many of the usual less invasive treatments are not relevant. But strangely metformin seems to help me ovulate more regularly? When I do cycle consistently my cycle is typically 38-40 days which means that I don't have as many opportunities to hit a fertile window as most women.
Since you *can* conceive naturally when you have PCOS the question is how much time do you give it and do you want to try some less invasive stuff first (e.g. try metformin, do ovulation induction/IUI or jump straight to IVF, etc.). In my case it ended up taking us 7 months from diagnosis after not having a period for 6 months coming off birth control to conceive. In this time, there were a lot of bumps in the road and then I had a first trimester missed miscarriage (very common for 36 year olds due to age related aneuploidies, but your chance of MC is elevated further with PCOS) that resulted in a D&C at 10 weeks. Who knows how long it will take to conceive again. We started having unprotected sex when I was 35 and at this point if I'm lucky I will have my first child at 37 at the earliest (but likely closer to 38-39).
By bumps in the road: my experience is my egg retrievals were unexpectedly not as successful because I oddly need higher ovarian stimulation levels than most women with my biomarkers. When you have PCOS you tend to have a high antral follicle count and high AMH (antimullerian hormone, a marker of egg egg reserve), and indeed, my AMH is absurdly high for my age and I have tons of follicles. Because of this, egg retrievals are usually highly successful for women with PCOS (although egg quality tends tends to be a bigger issue). This puts you at high risk for ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). Well, surprise, my body needs WAY higher levels of ovarian stimulation for successful egg retrievals than would have been even remotely responsible to give me without seeing how I reacted. Thus, I had 2 not successful egg retrievals where few eggs reached maturity and my estrogen never spiked to OHSS danger zone. Now we know for next time. Except to do two attempts at egg retrieval, that ended up taking nearly 4 months. After that we took a break for a few months and I got pregnant naturally surprisingly, and then miscarried. So back to square one!
You just have less runway to iterate if it takes longer for you to conceive and/or if you need fertility treatment (which is often a process of trial and error in and of itself as we all have unique biology). Typically for many fertility treatments, you need to time it around your cycle/hormone levels which is tricky when your cycle is long or irregular or normalizing after miscarriage or fertility treatment. A full IVF cycle from consult to embryo transfer with PGT testing usually takes about 4 months if your egg retrieval works well the first time.
If you have PCOS and want kids, I would recommend giving yourself some runway, whether this is starting at 32-33 instead of 35, or banking 20+ oocytes. Because egg quality is often an issue with PCOS, you want to be on the higher end of statistics for your age, which may mean 2-3 retrievals. In my case I had no clue until I was 35 that I had anovulatory PCOS, because I had been on the pill for over a decade (in retrospect, to manage painful/heavy irregular periods, symptoms of PCOS, and the pill is one of the best ways to manage PCOS symptoms if you aren't trying to conceive).
LOL wow this got way longer than I anticipated. You have enough of a technical background I could go on and on about all the bizarre things I have discovered about my individual fertility.
The TL;DR is if you don't ovulate regularly, it's harder to get pregnant. If you need fertility treatment, it may be smooth sailing (PCOS tends to respond to fertility treatment well compared to many other fertility issues) or it may be a process. Impossible to know unless you try. We also have an elevated risk of miscarriage which gets worse as we age. Most women who have PCOS I know are eventually able to have the family size they want (provided they wanted ~1-3 kids) but it takes them longer to get there.
I suppose some might say the answer is surrogacy to make the male and female parents roles both donation of gametes for someone else to gestate. This is obviously problematic because SOME woman's body needs to be involved in this stage. For academics in particular, there is the affordability issue even if you can shove aside ethical concerns. And for me personally, despite the challenges, I think the notion we can grow a human inside our bodies is pretty freaking cool and I wouldn't want to miss out, career consequences be damned. Some things in life are more important.
I don’t know how true it is (because you cannot trust a company’s PR) but I remember getting tours at big consultancies in the US when I was a grad student, and the consultancies emphasizing that they were in the process of creating partnership tracks that took the toll of childbearing into account for women. Now, while they certainly were doing this because they believed it to be the right thing to do, they also were doing it because they believed it would make them more money. They wanted to recruit and retain the best talent, and that meant attracting and retaining women even through their childbearing years. I think that they also recognized that there were a number of women who would make great partners (better than the typical male partner) but weren’t willing to stick around and put in the countless hours necessary to make partner, when they could leave for roles with fewer hours, an immediate and large salary bump, and also more room for advancement and growth, even if ultimately the remuneration would be lower than making partner. I have no idea how much hot air this was, as I think only one person I went to school with has made partner, even though we are more than a decade out from graduation (I blame older generations who won’t retire). Anyway, the theory seemed solid, but it is probably only something that works with the intersection of the private sector and careers with sufficient balance between supply and demand that workers have some bargaining power.
There *is* actually a way to graduate high school early in California already... It’s called “Venture Independent Study” but so many parents refuse to let their kids do it, because they think it’ll harm their chances of getting into college
I don't know if these exist in California, but I've also heard of something called "dual enrollment" programs that let you start college a year early. Apparently, while still enrolled in high school, you take college classes in place of regular high school classes, and the classes end up counting towards both high school and college graduation. You still technically spend four years in high school and two or four years in college, but one of the years counts for both.
My High School / local Jr College offered a similar option in Illinois. I graduated with a BS in Econ in 3 years while taking a normal course load, and was able to spend a semester studying abroad.
1000% everyone should do this if they can.
Wow, I spent my twenties with such severe anxiety that I was unable to work or go to school full time, or do much of anything as substantial as what my peers did. I have the ambition but no plans to realize anything remotely close to pursuing a science degree, or professional school, etc. I only work 18 hours a week at a preschool as an office assistant, but I have dreams of making a big impact on the world in a naive, idealist way. I wish I had the same struggles as the women you talk about, since I think they are blessed with having kids and having successful careers. Everyone tells me I have time, but I’m 30 and have been putting pressure on myself to have kids within 5 years (even though my boyfriend and I have no plans to get married and have kids anytime soon). I refuse to leave it up to biology and my relatively advanced age to determine my kids’ chances for a meaningful existence. I have applied to full time jobs in library science, but I feel like I’m headed down a treacherous path with that career field. I know I can’t go back and change the past, but I wish someone could step in like a fairy godmother and give me the answers I’ve been seeking. Has anyone felt this way before?
Can you teach yourself smth that you think would be useful for a job? What are your best skills in your opinion?
I like to learn things casually, through watching YouTube videos and reading books and Substack, but I am concerned about my ability to master a serious skill without the structure of a formal learning environment and supportive people around me. I have a language processing disorder so I need feedback from other people to know that I am interpreting situations accurately. As for skills, I am proficient in basic tools like Microsoft Office and clear, concise communication, but I honestly have no technical skills or expertise that require mastery of a specialized field like library science. I have worked in a public library for years shelving books and working the circulation desk, but I had to leave that job because they couldn’t provide me more than 1 weekend shift a month, so I couldn’t always learn on the job. I want to get my master’s degree but I don’t see how that’s even possible given my lack of clarity on what I actually want to do with my life.
I think in your situation thinking about how you wanna change the world/ do smth very impactful is the wrong approach. I'm gonna be honest. You should try and train yourself in something practical that's closest to your natural abilities and will get you a job. You should optimize for a combo of salary/not hating the job/ realistic to train in it. Eg you probably can't become a nuclear physicist now. Becoming good at that job will
Give you intrinsic satisfaction (I should mention you should probably also look for a field where you can progress). People I think overrate "finding their calling". Just doing smth and becoming good at it will make you like it. Ofc there's innate talent. Try to match smth practical with good salary and advancement prospects to your talents. The closest thing there is out there. It doesn't have to sound super fancy or change the world. Just do it well.
This isn't the advice I'd give anyone. I think people can learn physics on their own. But that requires extraordinary discipline and mental fortitude. So you should be realistic abt that.
Get urself checked for ADHD/ anxiety etc. meds can help a lot.
But for the moment, just do smth practical you can progress in. Don't think abt changing the world. In 10 yrs if you become the best librarian or best teacher or best paralegal or whatever it is that you choose you'll have the chance to contribute to the community you're in. But if you're just stuck not doing anything and wondering, you won't.
I don't know abt the future of librarian as a job -- you should consider that considering AI whether people still read physical books etc. but there are related jobs like paralegal, teaching, admin assistant, executive assistant etc etc I don't know exactly if you went to uni or not. But there must be a sort of office job kind of thing that is the best option for you given your circumstances. You start from there even if not glamorous and try to do be the best and then you will feel satisfied by that!
Having raised 4 children in my 30s, if I would change one thing, it would have been to start earlier, because childrearing is physically taxing, and having 3+ young children at once is far more taxing than having only 1 or 2. Industrial societies don't replace themselves; we need a lot more families with 3+ children if those societies are to survive long term. Extending women's fertility to higher ages is therefore likely a dead-end without currently speculative rejuvination technologies, which are likely only to induce longer competitive cycles in careers.
The answer rather obviously, is to "extend" women's fertility earlier - that is, use it earlier. It would be nice if that has a lower career penalty, but there is likely a lower bound.
I super agree with taking more care of women’s time early in life
I wouldn't consider 'Society is fixed, biology is mutable' to be underrated. I might be an outlier here, but it it is a very compelling perspective on psychiatry and public health.
Underrated as in by ppl in general. Like, I don't think ppl talk as much abt this essay of his as they talk abt others
Yeah, probably because it's one of his earlier ones.
I find the idea that high school should be shorter rather amusing, because I would make the opposite change - more youth should take 5 years rather than 4. In my part of the world, high school was (formerly) usually 5 years for the university-bound, and IMO, the longer period was better for at least 2/3 of us. In nearby Quebec, high school has a 3 year stage followed by a local 2-year junior-college-like stage, which is effectively similar.
The longer high school allows for more electives (especially for the STEM-bound) and a more rounded education in a lower-pressure environment while living at home. More opportunities for co-ops too. For the kids that didn't excel during COVID, a 5th year would also be helpful.
There is so much growing up to do when 17/18, and many benefit from doing so at home.
I see it with my own teens too - 2/4 of them should take 5 years, although because a 5th year now faces social stigma, it won't happen.
NOTE: I'm not advocating against flexibility, especially for the truly most gifted. I have an uncle who is world-renowned in his field, who finished high school at 13 and was an MD by 18. That was great for him.
Loads of ppl doing greedy careers could've speedrun some education steps
“But technological advances that extend women’s fertility windows might give women the option to invest in their careers in their thirties and have children later. A hundred years from now, women having children well into their forties may be as commonplace as married women and mothers in the workforce are today.”
I’m somewhat inclined to agree but I think there is a fallacy most of us fall victim to, where we assume that technological innovation follows a consistent, linear trajectory. I mean, owing to advances in computers in the 1960s people thought AI image processing could be accomplished within the decade, and they were obviously wrong. I just don’t think we can take for granted the pace of recent scientific breakthroughs and assume they will continue at the same consistent pace in perpetuity.
I also suspect that to some extent we underestimate the inherent limitations of engineering the human body. It’s not like a semiconductor, which we can create and modify at will. It’s more like trying to fundamentally alter a natural ecosystem and have it still function effectively.
Yeah I mean I mention this is no guarantee. I just think it's important to try and fund it, especially compared to other fake feminist causes
While extending female fertility is a promising solution, I can’t help but feel that having children only at 30 or 35 is somewhat depressing (at least for me, do those career-oriented child-wanting women think so too?). In my early 20s, I already find the typical childless young adulthood—focused on enjoying life and climbing the corporate ladder—less exciting and meaningful than people claim. That’s part of why I want children early; I feel that raising a family offers a deeper sense of purpose.
What I mean is, I find it difficult to understand how people, if they truly have a strong desire for children, postpone it until their late 30s. I can only assume that many feel conflicted between career and family, ultimately prioritizing their professional lives because society assigns more status to career success. This applies to both men and women. Or a simpler answer is that, in our society, people are conditioned not to think seriously about partnering until their late 20s and only consider having kids after being in a serious relationship for a few years. Postponing kids and ending up childless seems to be a natural result.
That's why I think while biotechnology is great, we should change the cultural expectation around when to marry and have kids. While society is not outright anti-child, it is ambiguous toward children to the point of ignoring the topic and thus discouraging people from thinking seriously about it.
Yeah I think I'm one of the women who really wants kids. But would rather delay
Ruxandra, you call out the different paths forward: policy and infrastructure changes (flexible work policies, child care support enable women to pursue fulfilling/boundary pushing careers or careers), science advances (extending fertility from the biological perspective), and touch on cultural changes (men stepping in more).
To me, it makes sense to continue pushing on all fronts. Speaking to the cultural piece, there needs to be more creativity around family structure, which expands childrearing from a task for two isolated individuals to what it has been for thousands of years, and still is beyond the western world: the community's shared responsibility. This reframes the conversation from women's careers vs. men's careers or "greedy jobs" vs. "non-greedy jobs". Some people do want those pharmacy jobs, and want to prioritize raising children, while others want an intense project to focus on.
I'm surprised by the type of pushback from readers on what is to me, an uncontroversial take. We should never assume to know what the biological or technological limits will be, nor should we assume that expanding women's choices will lead to more harm than good.
The pushback is because this isn't just theoretical. It's not just about where biological and technological limits fall in the future. This affects women's decisions TODAY and I don't want women making them based on false promises.
What false promises?
False promises is too harsh, I'm not sure how else to say it.
I'm seeing too many women thinking they don't have to make that difficult choice anymore (or delay children for other reasons), they can freeze their eggs and problem solved. That's just not true. I want all young women with the decision to delay in front of them to be fully informed and recognize the full implications.
But that's what my piece does. It lays out the %s exactly. 70% for > 20 frozen eggs. And suggests ways to improve that
Yes, I really appreciate that. :) And I love when writers engage with their readers.
I'm not meaning to come off on you. I shared in another comment some about why this issue is very emotional for me. I've been increasingly frustrated with the conversation around it and you gave me an outlet to express that. I may not be doing it very well.
I get it. OTOH I also also saw false claims on the other direction: that egg freezing is much less effective than it is
1944?
Are you kidding me?
That was going on when I was a kid in the 1960s
Oh really?
It was going on as late as the 70s in Australia, at least according to my colleague.
Yikes
I believe that it still happens sometimes in China today. I have definitely heard of women lying about being married during job interviews so that they wouldn’t be automatically rejected.
I am reading, re-reading and taking fast notes. Excellent points raised that do need to be more front and centre in those Women@ conversations, and not only there. Thank you for sharing this research!
Thank you :)
We need a form of feminism that cares more about improving women's lives than making them more similar to men. More people like Semmelweis , less DEI trainings
Women are half the population, so their idea of 'improving women's lives' is going to vary quite a bit. Does that mean letting them stay home with the kids or letting them climb the career ladder, to take one familiar example?
How about giving women all the information and options when they're young to help them make the decisions that are right for them as individuals?
Why not make it our goal to support women in their own decisions (be it climbing the career ladder or staying at home) rather than making recommendations based on the goal of closing the gender wage gap?
Right, there's a huge range of what "improving women's lives" would be, and it's often (but not always) somewhat similar to what the woman in question thinks *her* ideal life would be, so you have trad women trying to advocate for making family formation easier and feminists advocating for closing career gaps. (Which was my point. ;) )
Of course like yourself one could be in the middle, but people in the middle are much less likely to join political arguments in general.
Great article. I especially like the idea of finishing high-school earlier. it seems that a lot of society is set up to waste time during the important years.
Another solution, apart from extending the fertility window, is providing really affordable childcare, and (people will yell at me) maybe lower the expectations from parenting - I keep seeing posts about how parents should entertain their kids at all times, as if being bored is detrimental somehow.
On the one side of extending the fertility window, it will fight the wage gap, on the other, if the time between generations will increase even more, idk if it'll even help the TFR.
(also, I don't think TFR rates mainly decrease because of women in the workforce, see Israel for a counter example)
I digress, but I wonder if most women agree with me that the main reason to want to have fewer/later kids is the pregnancy itself, and therefore artificial wombs are the real answer.
“At the moment, one’s 30s are an important time for career advancement *and* also when women’s fertility starts to decline.”
Women’s fertility peaks about 22 and declines linearly for about the next two decades.
I work with a load of high-IQ, competent women in their 30s and 40s with young children who have zero interest in their work following them home. They richly enjoy their time spent with their children and have no curiosity about their day job beyond the necessary.
"I work with a load of high-IQ, competent women in their 30s and 40s with young children who have zero interest in their work following them home. They richly enjoy their time spent with their children and have no curiosity about their day job beyond the necessary."
Not to speak for the author, but I think her point is that, if these women are in Greedy Careers, then the fact that rewards--both remuneration and accomplishment--are Pareto distributed means that the odds are high that they are going to be outcompeted by their childless and/or male peers that can and will devote 60-80hrs/wk to that work. I can think of female outliers whose success is counter to that trend in my own field, but they are more 'exceptions that prove the rule' than anything else.
Of course, if we're not talking about a Greedy Career, then the above does not apply, obviously.
Yes precisely, that's what I meant. Thank you
Most people are not in, and never will be in, greedy careers.
Male and female.
The author, above commenter, and myself don’t disagree, and you’re missing the mark here.
Yes. This is why I bring examples like scientists, lawyers etc
Yeah agreed this is a post abt greedy careers
No need to spread false information. Fertility does not decline "linearly" over two decades. It declines virtually not at all til age 30...goes down maybe 5%, which is insignificant. From 30 to 35 there is a slightly increased decline, but still not by much and most women will have no trouble at all getting pregnant -- if they do they have issues they would have had them earlier too, bc it only declines maybe 15% max as a result of age. It really only increases rapidly after 35, in particular falling off a cliff at 38, and being close to impossible naturally after age 42ish.
These stats are easy to look up, and people need to be clear. I know LOTS of women with unintended pregnancies at ages 35 to 40 that occurred because they were misled in thinking pregnancy was way more difficult and unlikely at those ages than it actually is, so they became very lax with birth control or stopped using it entirely, under the mistaken belief it was no longer necessary.
One of the problems here is that in the past, women did not purposely prevent pregnancy until such a later age, so they would've discovered if they had their own fertility issues earlier. And most of them didn't, and often got their tubes tied or received IUDs AFTER they were done having their kids, in their late 20s or early 30s. Now the pattern is opposite where they don't even go off birth control or get their IUD removed til their 30s. Anyway, bottom line is that there is close to zero age-related decline in ability to get pregnant through age 30, and very little through age 35, but after that it drops off very rapidly, particularly at age 38 where it goes off a cliff.
Yes - and the main thing is : will I be able to conceive if I try ? I don't think most ppl mind having a kid after 7 months of trying vs 2. And even at 38 or so most most women can conceive
I really think one of the issues in delaying is that women who have non-age related fertility issues won't discover it earlier. Everyone I knew who had an issue in or needed IVF had a long standing issue the whole time and just didn't know it, in fact most discovered it in their 20s. Then on the other side of things, I know a LOT of women who got pregnant at 39 or 40 when they *did not want to be and thought they were done* for the exact opposite reason, which is that they thought it was way less likely than it actually was, and so just got careless with birth control.
But see I live in a place where it's fairly normal to have kids young and plenty did so before or during grad school (which is not typical anywhere else in the US, I don't think). Most of the female lawyers I know had their first kid before they graduated law school. And lots of them had their last -- not on purpose! -- at 40ish. You can't underestimate how important it is for their male peers to be on board with this. I don't think that outside of Utah you have many young men willing to become fathers before their wife has finished schoolvor started work, but here that's considered very normal. It definitely is for them, most of them have kids before they finish up school and start working too. That requires quite a bit of confidence though, that things are going to go okay, that you'll get and keep your good job, and be able to bear all that plus pay off student loans.
Chance of getting pregnant per unit of unprotected intercourse peaks around age 22.
Right and like I said, declines virtually not at all the next decade. You are talking about a difference of like getting pregnant in 3 months versus 2, it is not significant. It is only after 38 that it declines very sharply, but even then, as she pointed out, most women who don't have a pre-existing fertility issue that she would have had at 22 as well, will still get pregnant. Just may take 6 or 7 months instead of 2. Then after 42 is when it becomes very unlikely to happen at all.
This is like saying that wine is as strong as whiskey, you just have to drink three times as much to get as drunk.
Not really, its like saying it'll take you 3 months to get pregnant at 30 and 2 months at 22, and that's not a significant difference to anyone. As opposed to what you said, which is blatantly false. Spreading falsehoods is not helpful, in either direction. Also 3 times as much of something is a 300% difference. The difference in fertility between 22 and 30 is less than a 10% difference, meaning you exaggerated by a factor of 30.
“Also 3 times as much of something is a 300% difference”
It’s a 200% difference. And I was making an analogy.
Chance of getting pregnant per unit of unprotected intercourse peaks at 22 and declines after. You can define fertility your own way if you like. I’m happy with mine.