Promoting work-life balance or collapsing: Socioeconomic and demographic factors influencing on the use of Assited Human Reproduction Techniques in regional perspective

Abstract

During the last two decades the number of women who turn to fertility treatments and Assisted Human Reproduction techniques (AHRT) has notably increased. Medical Sciences have tried to explain the increasement of the use of these techniques throughout various variables such as biological factors, genetics and phenotypes, however, there are barely studies that manifest the relevance of socioeconomics and demographic factors to give an explanation on the actual increasement of the use of the AHRT. This article aims to inquire into the importance of several sociodemographic and economic variables in the prevalence of the use of the AHRT in the Spanish Regions. To do so, the Spanish Society of Fertility data file has been used. The influence of some factors, such as the feminine activity, the average age to the first marriage, the average age to the first child, the fertility rate, the average number of children per woman, the studies' level of women, or the feminine employment rate, on the number of in vitro Fertility Cycles for each thousand women in each of the autonomous communities have been analized. Findings show a direct and possitive relation with factors like the feminine activity rate, the feminine employment rate and the women's educational level. Likewise, it exists a relation of sociodemographic factors such as the average age to marriage, the average age to the birth of the first child, the fertility rate, or the average number of children per woman. Those findings reveal the crucial importance of sociodemographic and economic factors in the use of the AHRT as well as the need for life work balance policies that allow a reduction in the age of birth of the first child.