University Students Don’t Understand Their Own Fertility Clocks, by Elfy Scott.

While young Australian adults seem to consider themselves very well informed on sexually transmitted diseases and contraception, a new study has shown that they’re pretty poor at understanding their own fertility and knowing when it realistically becomes harder to have children.

In a survey of over 1200 male and female students from one university, Victorian researchers found that even though 90% of participants wanted children later in life, most of them underestimated the impact that age has on fertility.

Less than half of the participants correctly estimated the age that women’s fertility begins to decline significantly (35 to 39 years-old), and less than a fifth knew when male fertility declines (45 to 49 years-old).