According to this article, there is some evidence of a decline in male fertility since the pandemic, and this is on top of the known long-term decline in male fertility. For one thing, the virus actually infects the testes themselves. But another thing I didn’t know (or never thought a lot about) is that hormones originating the brain have an important effect on sperm production, so a drop in sperm production might not indicate a physical problem with your testicles themselves.
This article also says that when couples have trouble conceiving for biological reasons, about half the time the problem originates in the male and about half the time in the female. This kind of makes sense. I suspect chemicals in our air, water, and/or food, combined with the stress and time-constraints of modern urban, industrialized life.
Other things that certainly affect fertility rates in a social sense are educated and employed women coupled with (lack of) policies to support families and childcare. I believe pressure on men to work long hard hours to support a family financially somewhat obviously has an effect here too, but maybe this is controversial to some.
If I didn’t have to work quite as long and hard at my testicle-shrinking job, I could spend more time with my children or help more with housework. You can work, help with children, have a great marriage, help care for aging relatives, and maximize your own mental and physical health, but there are some tradeoffs between these desirable objectives for both men and women. The decline of multi-generational households and extended family living close by certainly doesn’t help. There may be no return to the past, but as we lose these aspects of our culture we may need public policy to step in and help fill the gap. In the U.S. at least, that isn’t happening, and we are all standing around scratching our heads as to why we have to give up aspects of our lives (like our health, and strong marriages!) just to keep the whole house of cards from collapsing.