“No woman goes running with thrill into egg-freezing,” says Professor Marcia Inhorn. “A lot of these women would rather not be doing it.”
And yet it is the fastest growing fertility treatment in the UK. Between 2019 and 2021, egg-freezing cycles surged by 64%, making it the fastest growing fertility treatment type in the UK. In 2011, there were just 373 cycles; by 2021, there were 4,215. Nor is it now uncommon for women at gold-plated companies to receive extensive “fertility benefits”: Spotify gives female employees £40,000 towards treatment, while Apple and Meta subsidise egg-freezing for up to £16,000.
However, as appealing as it might be, this narrative of career-focused women delaying motherhood barely scratches the surface of a much deeper societal shift. Contrary to popular discourse, recent data reveals a startling statistic: approximately 70% of women who freeze their eggs are not motivated by career ambitions. Rather, they’re either single or struggling to get their partner to commit to parenthood.
To understand this social phenomenon, Dr Inhorn, a medical anthropologist at Yale University, embarked on a decade-long study that looked beyond the fertility clinic and into the changing dynamics of modern relationships. “We’re seeing a growing disparity between ambitious and educated women, and the availability of equally educated and committed male partners. It’s creating a demographic crisis that few are talking about,” Inhorn tells me. Her study of 150 women, later developed into a book published last year, found that many were either in relationships for several years and tried to get their partners to commit to fatherhood, or were single because they were not able to find a partner of equal educational or earning status. According to her research, at the time of freezing their eggs, 82% of the women were single at the time of freezing their eggs; meanwhile, 18% were with a partner when they went through the process, but had relationship issues and were not able to get them to commit to fatherhood.
This shift, largely overlooked when exploring social egg-freezing, points to a phenomenon Inhorn calls “the mating gap”. This refers to the disparity between men and women in terms of relational, and eventually reproductive, expectations. While the women in the study, on average in their mid to late thirties, were ready to make a commitment to a partner, settle down and have children, they found a misalignment with the men they were dating. These men weren’t interested in the responsibility that comes with committed relationships and fatherhood — they wanted to play the field and live as free agents for as long as possible.
As Inhorn notes, “there is a lack of eligible, educated and equal male partners” for college-educated women, who now outnumber men in the labour force, not just in the US, but across developed nations. This pattern of course means a substantial number of women will not find a partner with a similar educational background. And even those who found partners were not always satisfied. “While most of the women in the study were highly educated women who were not able to find a partner of equal status, some of the women were actually in relationships, and tried for several years, but couldn’t get the person ready,” Inhorn notes. “Other women were married, who had hung in there, and got to a make-or-break moment where they were like what do I do?”
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