Maryam Naghsh Nejad, University of Technology Sydney - The dual impact of involuntary childlessness and assisted reproductive technologies

Title: Career costs and emotional tolls: the dual impact of involuntary childlessness and assisted reproductive technologies

Abstract: This paper explores the economic and mental health impacts of involuntary childlessness and the experience of receiving assisted reproductive technologies (ART). Using a unique dataset that includes all of the Australian population and tracks individuals through their fertility journeys, healthcare use, and professional careers, we examine the dual burden of emotional distress and career disruptions associated with involuntary childlessness and ART treatment. By focusing on the ART population, we target a group with a revealed intention to conceive. Applying a triple difference-in-differences approach, taking the difference between the event-study coefficients of women who were childless after 5 years since their first assisted reproductive technology (ART) embryo transfer and women who had a successful pregnancy within those 5 years. We find that involuntary childlessness has a large and persistent impact on the outcomes of women, compared to having a successful pregnancy. First, it negatively affects mental health for up to 5 years, as measured by their prescription records. Second, it positively affects their income via the lack of child penalty. However, using a later-treated dynamic DID approach, we also find evidence that the ART treatment itself has a large negative impact on income among childless women. This implies that the cost of ART might be orders of magnitude larger than its ticket price. Moreover, the estimations of child penalty using the unsuccessful IVF patients as a reference might suffer from underestimation.

Presenter:  Maryam Naghsh Nejad, Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation, University of Technology Sydney

If you would like to subscribe to the Melbourne Institute Seminar Series email list, please contact us.