Reading this article article "Fertility on Demand" which explores how emerging fertility technologies could help women overcome the longstanding tradeoff between career advancement and motherhood, made me think of M. She is at the fork on the road where she can either double down on career and make real progress or shift gears to have children. Having turned thirty a couple of months ago, she has to make those decisions sooner than later. Being wise she's chosen to go on a sabbatical to sort out which road she's going to take.
Despite decades of policy efforts, the gender pay gap persists largely because women’s earnings and career trajectories are negatively impacted when they take time out to have and raise children during their peak professional years. This will her story too should she decide to take pause now while her career is on the upswing While delaying childbirth can help women advance in their careers, fertility declines with age, leaving many highly educated women with fewer children than they desire or unable to have children at all. That is what M and many like her are afraid. How late is too late, when does the window of opportunity close for good.
While egg freezing allows women to preserve their younger, healthier eggs for use later, with recent studies showing promising success rates if enough eggs are frozen before age 38, not every woman in M's stage of life is eager to consider it as an option. The process remains costly, physically taxing, and not universally successful. The stories of women who have tried it (with or without success) leaves those considering it ambivalent. Automation and AI are beginning to make egg freezing and IVF more efficient and less dependent on highly skilled human labor, potentially lowering costs and improving outcomes. Maybe that will change the game going forward.
M is married so she has that covered. There are any number of women in her age bracket and career stage that are in what they would describe as a happy relationship. But they are partnered with Peter Pan. He has every reason and the means to settle down and start a family with the woman he has been with for a long time but he is not quite ready to pull the trigger and grow up. So the woman waits in vain and by the time she wises up to the fact that marriage and kids are unlikely in her current situation is close to the end of the fertility window. I know some in that category a well.