Women’s Labor and Infertility

Women’s Labor and Infertility

We ladies have a special relation to the word labor–it names the work we do for pay outside the house, the work we do for free at home, and that transitional, and frequently painful, hard physical work through which many of us directly produce the next generation for the nation.

The relation among all three realms of women’s labor has been in flux for decades. New farm technologies and our expanded life-spans mean the world just doesn’t need so many babies. Our understanding of women’s work has been especially mobile since the arrival of hormonal birth control in 1960, in concert with rising education and employment options.

Given the choice, women and their partners have opted to have fewer kids, delay their arrival, or decide against them altogether. Released from old biological constraints, women have flooded the universities and climbed career ladders, redefining “women’s work” by expanding it to include just about every field of endeavor, and doubling our national talent pool.

Absent supportive work policies, delay of kids has provided a shadow benefits system. Many women waited until their salaries and their on-the-job clout had grown and they could negotiate family-friendly schedules they wouldn’t have been able to get earlier on. As a result of their trickle up, women as a group have a new status in policy discussions, a status directly linked to their use of contraception to delay the arrival of kids–-some by a few years, others by many.

In 2007, 612,000 babies were born to women 35 and over (that’s 1 in every 7 babies), of which 105,071 were to women 40-44 and 7,349 were to women 45-54 [up from 1,375 20 years prior]).* But while some delay works for most, long delay brings difficulties.

Fertility wanes, and especially quickly between 40 and 43. But the desire to form a family often increases with age, especially now that women can hope to continue fit and healthy into their 80s; they’re better off financially; they’re more likely to be in a long-term relationship; they’ve accomplished many of their work ambitions and are ready to focus on family. Though they’re ready, their bodies don’t always cooperate.

In 15 states, women who encounter infertility for whatever reason** get some degree of insurance coverage for treatments – variously including IUI, IVF and egg donation, on a model similar to health-plan birth coverage. The infertility advocacy group Resolve states on its website that two thirds of infertile couples who seek medical intervention end up with a birth. In addition, many infertile couples and singles build happy families through adoption, while others end up without kids though they had hoped to have them – a situation full of ongoing sadness even when the people involved do move on to a revised life plan with happiness of its own.

In states that mandate full coverage, the average addition to everyone’s annual health bill was $3.14 in 1995, made low through economies of scale. In the other 35 states, you’re on your own and prices are high. Some can afford to pay $12,000 each for an IVF cycle or two, others can’t.

But society as a whole benefits when all citizens who want them can have kids when they’re ready–at the most basic level because we need a next generation of workers, but at another level because we want our citizens to be happy–for charitable reasons and more pragmatically because families are often what people work for, at whatever point they start them. In the end, it’s all about the labor force. Do we want educated couples excluded from the group of parents? Among those who encounter infertility, do we want only people who can afford the high cost of treatments to procreate?

In the past 50 years women have expanded their contributions in the workplace, and their education has grown the human capital of the nation. If sufficient numbers of women trickle up and change government support systems and business practice, future generations won’t have to delay in order to have both a family and a career to support them, though they may delay for other reasons.

There are lots of complexities to the modern fertility scene, and there’s plenty of room for misuse of new technologies as well as positive use. Which is which may not always be clear at first glance. As we move forward with health care reform, the expansion of infertility insurance to meet the needs of our expanding group of citizens who want to start their families later as well as people who encounter infertility from all causes should be part of the discussion, within a wider culture of care that assumes that all our citizens and families deserve basic supports, because we are our common wealth.

*The US birthrate to women 35-39 was 47.5 in 2007 and 26.2 in 1987; to women 40-44 it was 9.5/4.4; and to women 45-54 it was 0.6/0.2 (the rates are figured per 1000 fertile women).

**Female infertility isn’t just about delay–it can occur in younger women as well and is linked to increases in STDs, to PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome–think Kate Gosselin), to endometriosis, to male factors, to environmental toxins, stress, and to other, unknown factors.

Share

What’s It All About?

Welcome to DomesticProduct.net – a new blog exploring the evolving dynamics of women’s work, at home and outside it, just in time for Labor Day!

Tension over what properly constitutes women’s work is the crux of much of our current public discourse. That tension feeds the babble about baby bumps that fills the celebrity magazines, lies at the root of our fair pay disputes, and of our struggles over access to abortion and birth control. The 2008 election operated in part as a labor debate over what kinds of jobs women are allowed to hold (president or clothes presser, in one formulation). The endless stories on fertility, birth timing and Mommy Wars play into the debate as well.

Ever since the advent of hormonal birth control in 1960, the social fabric woven over millennia around the assumption that women were baby machines has been undergoing quick redesign throughout the world. And stirring plenty of controversy. (see Never Done and Under Paid for more on this)

It’s taken a while, but gradually women are trickling up into policy-making positions in business and government. Once there, they’re beginning to change the rules—and to move us toward a culture of care that recognizes the importance of supporting families—incubators of that most domestic of products, our citizens—at the same time that we develop work systems that allow women to contribute fully to the Gross Domestic Product in the workplace. (see Remember Mama for more on building a culture of care). But there’s far to go yet, and it’s a long process!

I’ll be posting my thoughts on some of the many sides of this big and ongoing cultural shift, along with links to related stories. Your thoughts and stories welcome!

Share

Le Donne Son Mobili

Mobili, as in mobilizing–a poor attempt at a translingual pun (should be “si stanno mobilizzando” says my Italian friend, not “mobili” as in the line from Rigoletto). But if the pun is bad, the move is good–for Italy.

Today’s Times boasts an op-ed by Chiara Volpato on some Italian women’s response to Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi’s sexist treatment of one half of his citizenry:
Italian Women Rise Up

Pointing to big gender inequalities at home and in the workplace, very different from situations in other European countries, Volpato goes on to note that:

“The Italian media only exacerbate this bleak reality by presenting a picture of women that is incomprehensible to the rest of Europe. Private TV channels have started to broadcast images of women who are typically lightly dressed and silent beauties serving as decoration while older, fully dressed men are running the show. (It is worth noting here that Mr. Berlusconi owns the leading private television networks.)

“The impact of years of brainwashing is plain to see: recent research demonstrated that the most popular ambition among female teenagers is to become a velina (basically a showgirl). Young women and girls are consistently taught that their bodies, rather than their abilities and their knowledge, are the key to success. At the same time, the sexism portrayed on TV reinforces chauvinistic ideas among the culturally weakest parts of the population. Researchers who study female body objectification need only look to Italy to witness the sad consequences of this phenomenon.”

But women are increasingly fed up with this treatment, and are moving to change it. Bravissime!

(Volpato links the bad treatment women face in Italy to the low birthrate there, a connection made in earlier work, including a June article in the Times Magazine by Russell Shorto, called No Babies?)

Share

Sister Suffragette

images-1

Today is Women’s Equality Day – 89 years and counting since the passage of the Women’s Suffrage Amendment to the Constitution on August 26, 1920, allowing women to vote in the United States. A day to celebrate, and to take stock of what’s left to be done to get us to full equality, in the US and around the world.

Happily, while there’s plenty of work remaining, lots of people are moving on it. And talking about it. This week, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn have published a new book (Half the Sky) advocating action in defense of women’s rights on a global scale, and the NY Times Magazine devoted its pages this past week to the cause (Special Issue).

The National Organization for Women launched a new blog today – called “Say It, Sister,” featuring discussion of feminist issues and calls to action.

Of course, saying don’t make it so, not on its own, and the next big steps for women could connect to direct action through legislation – starting with the Healthy Families Act (paid sick days) as well as both the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Fair Pay Act (anti-job-and-pay-discrimination).

Can we make it to 50/50 by 2020, the 100th anniversary of WED and the suffrage amendment? Only if we keep pushing for change – and speaking out. Whether or not we hold up half the sky, we are more than half the population–could get pretty noisy!

From the archive: Never Done and Under Paid

Suffrage History: August 26, 1920, and the Nineteenth Amendment

Share

Happy Belated Daddy Day (in Advance)

2009-06-17-images.jpeg
We hear often about later moms these days, but less about the new later dads who’ve walked hand and hand with those moms into the modern world of birth timing. While it’s always been possible for men to have kids later than women (Sarah was the miracle, not Abraham, when Isaac arrived), the Tony Randalls of this world (new dad at 77) have always been a small contingent.

Like most women, most men tend to have their kids in their 20s and early 30s, though increasing numbers start their families in their late 30s to mid 40s (birthrates to men and women increased in all age ranges between 15 and 45 in the latest data). Though 80% of couples who marry in their 20s have a male partner older than the female partner, and it’s not exactly rare to see couples with men a decade or more older, most couples are still within a few years of one another in age (just 60% of couples who marry in their mid to late 30s and over have an older man – much closer to the 50/50 split that would occur if cultural pressure for an older man didn’t operate at all).

When birth control gave women the capacity to delay kids until they felt ready for them, whenever that might be, men began delaying at a similar rate, for similar reasons. The new later dads of our moment differ from the later dads of yore in that their wives are their peers – not just close in age, but often with similar educations, job histories and earnings (Ben Affleck [36] and Jennifer Garner [37] are one example among millions).

This completely changes the marriage dynamic and has been directly responsible for men’s increased involvement in the lives of their kids. If both parents are educated and earning, the logic of separate spheres evaporates. If they’re both working outside the home, it only makes sense that they’d share the care work as well. What started within individual marriages has quickly become a culture-wide phenomenon, among parents of all ages.

As men have become more involved in the lives of their kids, they’ve come to love being there – even as they understand in new ways the time and effort involved in home work. So dads and moms together are forging the movement to innovate new work rules that will allow both members of a parenting couple to be active participants in their families’ lives while pursuing fulfilling and decently paid careers ( Families and Work Institute ).

While we’re wishing Happy Daddy Day this weekend to all the loving dads, let’s take a minute to appreciate how much more involved in the lives of their kids dads are today than when the first father’s day was celebrated 101 years ago , and how interconnected are the changing dynamics of dads’ and moms’ roles inside and outside the home.

This piece also appeared on the Huffington Post.

Share