More than half of 25-34 year olds believe that infertility in a couple is a women’s affair. The difficulty in conceiving a child is thus an additional mental burden for the fairer sex.
- Infertility affects both women and men.
- According to 81% of 25-34 year olds, the possibility of easily conceiving a child is postponed beyond the age of 35, for women, thanks to advances in medicine.
- 58% of young adults believe that the new teleworking organization makes them want to have children more.
When it comes to fertility, received ideas die hard. As proof: 54% of people aged 25 to 34 think that infertility is still considered today as a predominantly female problem in the couple. This was revealed by a study conducted by OpinionWay for the telemedicine service deuxiemeavis.fr, in collaboration with Ronan Chastellier, sociologist and lecturer at the Paris Institute of Political Studies. This work was carried out on 1,050 adults aged 25 to 45, representative of the French population.
Women are more stressed because of infertility in the couple
“We still place the responsibility for infertility on women because procreation is above all a female affair. And this is true in the medical field because often, when there are infertility problems in a couple , we will first test the woman, well before the man, to find the source of the problem”, explained Pauline d’Orgeval, co-founder and President of the deuxiemeavis.fr service.
For 68% of the participants, women bear the majority of the stress linked to infertility within the couple. “Men do not seem to realize the stress caused by infertility in the couple”, Pauline d’Orgeval said in a statement. As a reminder, stress is a cause of infertility. Clearly, this factor “contributes to reinforcing the female responsibility for fertility in the couple, particularly around the age of 35”, can we read in the research.
The pressure around the desire for children, a new mental burden for women!
According to the results, 78% of young adults think that from the age of 35 the pressure around the desire for a child in the couple is similar to a new mental burden for women. The latter is felt both in society but also in the medical profession. According to the study, 63% of 25-34 year olds believe that the pressure from the medical profession for women to conceive a child before the age of 35 is as strong or even stronger than 10 years ago.
“Women have to undergo a kind of quite overwhelming self-stress on this subject because they are placed ‘in project mode’ with regard to the ‘first child’. A stress of infertility which can thus turn into macro psychosis in the couple, thus increasing the mental load of women”, pointed out sociologist Ronan Chastellier.
