There’s a crisis in male fertility. But you wouldn’t know it from the way many men behave

‘Average sperm counts worldwide have declined by half over the past 50 years, and more steeply still in the last 20.’ IVF treatment. Photograph: Science Photo Library/Zephyr/Getty Images

Women are rarely given the chance to forget about our biological clocks: their starting, slowing, stopping. I remember talking about whether I’d want children with my mum when I was six or seven years old. Now that I’m 32, my friends are having children, debating having them, or dating in the hopes of having the option.

My female friends, that is. My impression of the men in my life is that they are not really thinking about children at all, instead assuming that they will happen “one day” or waiting for the decision to be made for them – by their partner, or circumstance. Their declining fertility – something that women are made keenly aware of from a young age – doesn’t seem to factor into it.