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Yes, but they both can play a role.
On the margins, lower sperm counts are going to make conception take longer which will make the problems of delaying the process even worse.
Like I said, there's probably 'hidden' feedback loops. Women go to college for 4 years, and delay childbirth, and get habituated to delaying childbirth, and there's no real social pressure to remind her that she's got limited time to act, and each year of delay is making it harder. Its a problem that ends up making itself worse, especially if feedback from other sources is included.
One policy I've tongue-in-cheek suggested is that every woman should be forced to wear a timer that counts down to the day she becomes infertile, so as to create some pressure to hurry up the process.
That's assuming that sperm counts are the limiting factor in a meaningful number of cases. Has time to conception meaningfully increased when controlling for age of both partners?
My understanding of reproductive stats is that they tend to be skewed by those who are struggling to conceive tending to meticulously document every attempt, whilst those who are fecund it just happens.
I've got a 5 month old daughter and I know it happened within about 2-3 sessions without protection with my partner, but that's never entering the medical record whilst somebody in their 40s who's exhaustively logging and trying supplementation will be reflected in the research body
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