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Of course being the sort of person who would use embryonic gene editing is strongly anti correlated with fertility. We’re stuck with MK I humans.
The sort of person who would be the trailblazer for gene editing, maybe. And even they might be quicker to make the jump once we have artificial wombs too.
Once gene editing is easy enough to hit the mainstream, I don't doubt it will. Example: secular normies in USA circumsize their boys all the time even though this custom is mostly limited to the religious communities outside USA to my knowledge. If such an invasive thing could be popularized by a single humble cereal company owner (as the legend goes), imagine something that actually brings your kid up to the level of the Joneses.
What fertility influencing technology hasn’t reduced birthrates?
And circumcision was a public health campaign pushed by the government on the theory that it would stop STD’s.
What fertility influencing technology wasn't birth control in one way or the other?
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The sort of person who's looking forward to using embryonic gene editing is strongly anti-correlated with fertility, but that's true of any interest in future technology. Once it's a staid, established technology, or even just a decently-well-tested technology, I'd expect the correlation to shrink and then vanish. Compare interest in AI twenty years ago (serious discussion among meganerds, plus thematic window-dressing in scifi entertainment) to today (OpenAI just passed 300 million weekly active users).
No, gene editing is a different kind of technology because it adds an extra step to the process of reproduction. The basic thought process behind high fertility is ‘sex is fun and babies are cute’. Adding further considerations, extra steps, has never done anything good for the fertility rate.
Your gattaca future is a South Korean future- TFR of .7 with mandatory investment in high status striver tomfoolery. Even in the movie it was implied this was the case- the borrowed ladder character was a failure because he was only an Olympic silver medalist, not gold.
You want more babies people have to be ok with mediocrity because most people are mediocre by definition. You can’t have a society composed entirely of the top 10% or top 1% or whatever- it’s utterly meaningless without the other 90 or 99 percent.
A 100 IQ Westerner is both perfectly mediocre and within the top ~10% of Third World cognitive ability; raising the baseline is a worthwhile goal in of itself. That said, you have a point re. extra steps: the question is whether independent fertility-increasing measures can offset the extra cost/inconvenience.
What independent fertility-increasing measures have ever worked, short of transitioning to a right-wing authoritarian regime with a state ideology that women belong in the home? Because that one's not in the cards.
AFAIK, all we really know is that authoritarian measures (kinda) work, very high religiosity works (almost too well) and just paying people to have kids doesn't (or only has marginal effect). The possibility space has barely been explored in the past 100 years; perhaps more moderate cultural nudges will suffice. (Of course, if you don't wan't merely "moderate" cultural change, this argument is moot.)
Besides, the role of woman as exclusive homemaker was adapted to a very different environment than the post-industrial age, back when being a homemaker entailed responsibilities other than "operate the washing/cleaning/cooking machine" and "make sure the kids don't kill themselves". Women have it too easy for their own good, and good times make weak(er) (wo)men.
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