The core of the sexual revolution is no commitments. Indeed committing, and particularly the biggest: having kids, was and is seen as “stupid” and a marker of lower class status.
No one wants to be lower class, or stupid, so they don’t have kids. It’s neither trendy nor cool nor hip nor edgy.
Women can and will of course, dump any guy for a higher-status one when one comes along (no commitments remember). Men for their part will also dump any woman for a “hotter” woman when she’s available. The legacy of the Sexual Revolution.
This reality further erodes any desire to commit by having kids. Being a single parent is no fun and it’s a certainty given that romance is like employment on at will basis. I.E. you can be fired at any time. And generally will when something better comes along as it always does.
For women of course, their fertility window closes fast. By age 30 it is more difficult to conceive, and by age 40 very very difficult, with even the best and most hideously expensive fertility treatments offering no guarantee. True some women in their post 40′s can conceive, but then George Burns smoked cigars into his nineties. Some folks are just genetically blessed, most are not.
We don’t have a very good societal model that encourages women to commit to a man when their fertility is highest (and there are the fewest birth defects or problems like autism which are associated with births of women post 35). And then allow/encourage women to re-enter the workforce without career penalty.
The result is that of course, women who have kids in their twenties (mostly religious women) have offspring outnumbering their secular peers by huge margins (having a kid past 35 means generally, one child at best given biological reality).
The future belongs to religious conservatives because demography is destiny.
