Medically Assisted Reproduction and Partnership Stability

Alina Pelikh, Hanna Remes, Niina Metsä‐Simola and Alice Goisis

Population and Development Review, 2024, vol. 50, issue 4, 1289-1317

Abstract: Despite the increasing use of medically assisted reproduction (MAR) in modern societies, there is limited evidence on whether conceiving with MAR or remaining involuntarily childless after MAR is associated with partnership stability. While older age, the more advantaged socioeconomic position of women undergoing MAR and their strong fertility intentions could lead to higher partnership stability, the experience of infertility and undergoing MAR may have an opposite effect, especially if couples remain involuntarily childless. Using data on Finnish nulliparous couples from 1995–2017 (N = 149,884) and event‐history models, we compare the risk of separation of couples who remained childless after MAR (N = 3871), who conceived through MAR (N = 14,474), who conceived naturally without MAR (N = 167,962) or with a prior history of MAR (N = 2273). Couples who remained childless after MAR had a higher risk of separation than couples who conceived with MAR or naturally. The higher risk of separation decreased over time since the discontinuation of treatments but persisted over the longer term. There were no differences in the risk of separation between couples who conceived with MAR or naturally. The results suggest that involuntary childlessness after MAR is associated with an increased risk of separation while undergoing MAR/experiencing infertility does not seem to play a role.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12660

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:popdev:v:50:y:2024:i:4:p:1289-1317

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0098-7921

Access Statistics for this article

Population and Development Review is currently edited by Paul Demeny and Geoffrey McNicoll

More articles in Population and Development Review from The Population Council, Inc.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().