fertility

Pregnancy can be risky and expensive at any age.  But for those who can afford the costs, holding off until an older age can be advantageous. A recent article in The Atlantic describes how first-time moms over 40 tend to have greater education and financial stability. Drawing from a national fertility study, sociologist Karina Shreffler finds that half of women over 40 had to pursue expensive treatments like in vitro fertilization (IVF) in order to get pregnant. Older women are also at higher risk for various medical conditions. However, more affluent women have the financial ability to bear these expenses. Shreffler discusses numerous advantages that accompany this choice:

“People who are pursuing college are more likely to create this broader life plan: when to time their education, when to form their families, when to go for the promotion…We just don’t see that to that extent with women who don’t have college degrees.”

Waiting to have children can lead to more financial success and additional career opportunities, benefiting the children of older moms. Sociologist Karen Guzzo explains,

“These women are aware that, the longer they work before having kids, the more established they’ll be when they need to take time off — and the more valuable they’ll be to their companies.”

But again, these benefits are contingent upon the economic ability to bear the added costs that come with waiting to have children. As long as affluent, educated women are better equipped to benefit from late motherhood than women without college degrees, these benefits will perpetuate inequality.

According to the New York Times, research from everyone from the Department of Health and Human Services to the CDCP, National Survey of Family Growth, the Tinina Q. Cade Foundation, and black women themselves shows that, despite centuries’ old stereotypes and even fears that black women are particularly fertile, well, they’re not. In fact, married black women have twice the odds of infertility than white married women, but it’s rarely talked about.

Regina Townsend of thebrokenbrownegg.org tells the Times:

“With women of color, specifically Hispanic and African-American women, the stigma attached to us is that it’s not hard to have kids, and that we have a lot of kids,” she said. “And when you’re the one that can’t, you feel like, ‘I’ve failed.’”

Some of the disparity in seeking treatment for infertility comes from differing health networks (see our recent piece with Brian Southwell for more on that) and some from differing financial positions (see decades upon decades of research on the wealth gap between black and white U.S. citizens). That is, black women seem less likely to talk to other women, their gynecologists, and their faith communities about fertility (or a lack thereof), and they’re less likely to have the resources—financial, medical, and network-wise—to seek infertility treatment.

Part of the problem, said Arthur L. Greil, a sociologist at Alfred University in western New York who has studied infertility and women of color, is that middle-class white women tend to have the confidence and connections to navigate the health care system better than less affluent minority women.

Even further, since fibroids (benign tumors that can significantly affect fertility) are more prevalent among black women and black women take longer to reach out for fertility advice, problems are compounded by time. Fertility drops naturally over the years, of course, but Dr. David B. Seifer said:

…fibroids [are] just one of various “cultural issues, biological issues and social issues” black women face that can affect their fertility. He said black women often waited longer to seek a diagnosis of or treatment for infertility, which “gives all of these other biological factors more time to become more severe.”

As Cariesha Tate Singleton told the article’s author, she knows she’s up against a stereotype that women like her are naturally “baby-producing machines.” Groups like Fertility for Colored Girls are working to change that notion.