The Unequal Battle Against Infertility: Theory and Evidence from IVF Success and Drop-out
Using Danish administrative data, we show that IVF success is associated with maternal education: College-educated women have a 9% higher live birth chance than high school educated women and 25% higher than dropouts.
We exclude infertility causes, health behaviours, occupations, clinics, finances, and partner attributes as drivers. Instead, we focus on latent factors like ability and psychological traits. First, we show how proxies for these factors like Grade Point Average (GPA) shape IVF success. Second, we build a structural dynamic model of post-IVF-failure dropout where women differ in latent ability and psychological costs. Our model counterfactuals imply that ability explains 87% of the education gradient in IVF success, prompting a policy discussion.
Please join either in person or online. For in-person attendees, the talk will be preceded by a light lunch at 12.15pm.
Please email comms@sociology.ox.ac.uk with any questions or to receive the Microsoft Teams link.
Date:
27 January 2025, 12:45
Venue:
Seminar Room, Department of Sociology
Speaker:
Fane Groes (Copenhagen Business School)
Organising department:
Department of Sociology
Organiser contact email address:
comms@sociology.ox.ac.uk
Part of:
Sociology Department Weekly Seminar
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Laurel Quinn
