Infertility & Medically Assisted Reproduction
How is infertility and the use of treatment related to demographic change?
What are the consequences of medically assisted reproduction for families and their children?
The trend towards ever-later fertility is associated with a growing risk of experiencing fertility problems and of seeking medical help. Medically assisted reproduction (MAR) also facilitates the realization of fertility desires for same-sex couples and single women and men – groups for whom it is difficult to have children without medical help. The number of MAR-conceived children and of MAR families is thus increasing and so is the diversity of family forms in the global North.
Fertility and family research is only starting to take infertility and MAR into account to better understand fertility intentions, behaviors (such as contraceptive use) and outcomes over the life course. Yet, the patterns of change and the mechanisms behind new reproductive behaviors as well as their consequences have not been fully explored and understood, particularly in Europe.
The Working Group aims at …
- fostering research on infertility and medically assisted reproduction, its causes and consequences.
- connecting researchers across Europe and beyond who share an interest in the topic and stimulate collaborations.
- facilitating the dialogue between qualitative and quantitative research as well as from the various disciplines engaged in research on infertility and medically assisted reproduction.
- discussing specific topics such as research data, teaching, and communication about research findings.
We invite all researchers interested in infertility and medically assisted reproduction to be part of our Working Group. If you are interested in joining us, please send an email to jasmin.passet@bib.bund.de.
Events
We are very pleased to invite you to the first event of the group, which will be a webinar titled: "New perspectives on (demographic) data for the study of infertility and MAR" on 2 May, 2023 between 14:45 and 16:45 CET.
The webinar will begin with a 15 minute introduction to the group and its aims, and an opportunity for participants to introduce themselves.
This will be followed by a presentation by Prof Dr Christine Wyns (Université catholique de Louvain, Head of the Gynaecology and Andrology Department of the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc) who will give an overview of the EUMAR project for which ESHRE has recently received an EU4HEALTH grant. The project aims to develop a data registry to facilitate inter-institutional data sharing for open science and to allow longitudinal and cross-border follow-up of medically assisted reproduction (MAR) data.
The webinar will conclude with a 45-minute group discussion on how to improve data infrastructure and measurement for the study of infertility and MAR.
Those interested to participate should register by sending an email to jasmin.passet@bib.bund.de and we will send a zoom link later.
Steering Committee
Jasmin Passet-Wittig
Federal Institute for Population Research, Germany
Alice Goisis
Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Social Research Institute, University College London, United Kingdom
Eva Beaujouan
University of Vienna (Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, OeAW, University of Vienna)), Austria