Delayed Male Adulthood Lowers Birthrates

Young men are taking longer to achieve markers of adult partnership (leaving home, stable work, readiness to parent), which reduces the pool of plausible long‑term partners and therefore depresses fertility even when most women state they want children. This frames fertility decline as a relational and male‑centred problem — not only a choice problem for women — and points to interventions aimed at male economic and social integration. — If true, policy responses should shift from solely encouraging motherhood (childcare, cash) to restoring pathways to stable adulthood for men (housing, employment, social norms), changing where political energy and budgets go.