Suchergebnisse

Gender differences in research participation have been documented in both quantitative and qualitative studies, a pattern that is particularly pronounced in studies of reproduction. We use the National Survey of Fertility Barriers to analyze three reasons frequently used to explain men's non‐participation in reproductive research: (1) Reproduction is a sensitive subject for men, (2) reproduction is women's domain, and (3) men's unavailability due to seemingly pragmatic reasons (e.g., work schedule). Using binary logistic regression, we test these three explanations across two different models: women's gatekeeping (denying researcher access to partners) (n = 1,637) and men's own non‐response (n = 1,454). A substantial minority of women (12.8 percent), engaged in gatekeeping, but the dominant mechanism of men's non‐participation was their own non‐response once women granted researcher access to partners. Consistent with prior studies on general survey non‐response, several demographic variables were associated with men's participation. Additionally, findings suggest that the notion of reproduction as women's domain received the strongest support, though specific variables within this construct differed for models predicting women's gatekeeping versus men's non‐response of their own accord.

AbstractHealth and illness are not objective states but socially constructed categories. We focus here on infertility, a phenomenon that has shifted from being seen as a private problem of couples to being seen as a medical condition. Studying infertility provides an ideal vantage point from which to study such features of health care as inter‐societal and cross‐cultural disparities in health care, the relationship between identity and health, gender roles, and social and cultural variations in the process of medicalization. Infertility is stratified, both globally and within Western societies. Access to care is extremely limited for many women in developing societies and also for marginalized women in some highly industrialized societies. We also discuss the ways in which responses to infertility are influenced by the process of self‐definition. The experience of infertility is profoundly shaped by varying degrees of pronatalism and patriarchy. In advanced industrial societies, where voluntary childfree status is acknowledged, many women experience infertility as a 'secret stigma'; in other cultures, where motherhood is normative for all women, infertility may be impossible to hide. In the West, acceptance of the medical model is virtually hegemonic, but in other societies medical interpretations of infertility coexist with traditional interpretations.

Infertility is a discretionary health condition; although it carries with it important life course implications, treatment is rarely necessary for health reasons. Sociological theories of medical help‐seeking emphasize demographic factors, perceived need, and enabling conditions in health services utilization, but we find that social cues are also strongly associated with health services utilization for infertility. Adjusted for conventional predictors of medical help‐seeking, several social cue indicators have significant associations with utilization, including having friends and family with children, perceiving infertility stigma, and having a partner and/or family member who encourages treatment. Perceived need accounts for the largest portion of the variation in utilization. Enabling conditions explain less of the variance than social cues. Social cues should be especially important for discretionary health services utilization. Studies of service utilization for discretionary health conditions should explicitly incorporate a range of measures of social cues into their models.