You're right, it's not true. It's more like a decade's salary. Full IVF generally ranges from $10-15k USD. Median worldwide income is about $900 USD.
In many parts of the world, it's either way less expensive, or even covered by health insurance (at least a few tries).
Costs a good $10k in Sweden and Denmark as well. Don't know about the rest of Europe.
https://resolve.org/learn/financial-resources-for-family-bui...
What is the cost of living in the places of the world where $900 USD is average income of its populace.
From which I would ask: in those parts of the world, where does and income of $900 USD put someone in terms of poverty or prosperity. What is their social mobility?
Then I would ask: do the people living in these parts of the world feel the same urge to be parents as people living in rich countries like the US? Are the more social pressures in rich countries that make parenthood a desirable goal?
Is there a correlation between a country's wealth and conception rate ?
It was data from Switzerland though. But still 1 million USD in Switzerland is still a large amount and much 50 to 100 times higher than IVF and the same ratio would probably applies in many countries.
Bottom line is if you can't swallow the IVF price, you'd better not have kids in the first place because your kid will cost you much more than that every single year.
Calculation involves direct costs (upwards of 200k per kid) + indirect costs (bigger housing, owning bigger cars, more items, moving closer to good schools or quiet/safer places, etc).
Still I stand by the idea that if you can't swallow the IVF price you will be in a bad situation in the long term.