The “men as partners problem”, says Inhorn, has been a discourse in international reproductive health circles for some time, but is usually talked about in relation to poorer countries: “It’s talked about for men in the global south, now we need to start talking about the men as partners problem for women in the global north.” There are growing educational gender disparities in Canada and Europe – particularly in the UK.

This, says Inhorn, has left a stark imbalance when it comes to finding an equal partner.Īnd this educational gap is not limited to the US. In 2019, there were 28% more women than men in higher education in the US – and soon, it is projected, there will be two university educated women in America for every one university educated man. This, she says, reflects the growing gap between men and women going into higher education. “They were one after another women who had been successful in their career and at the same time had been looking for a partner, but they just couldn’t find that reproductive partner.” Inhorn’s research found that women freezing their eggs tended to be in their late 30s, successful high-earning professionals (in both the US and the UK, where it’s not usually covered by the NHS, it is prohibitively expensive for most) and primarily single. The biggest driving factor for women in the US was a shortage of suitable educated men, a problem which she terms in her forthcoming book, Motherhood on Ice, the “mating gap”.

More than 150 interviews later, her research – the largest anthropological study to date into why women freeze their eggs – concluded that it was men, not women, who were the problem. Prof Marcia C Inhorn has conducted a decade-long study into women who freeze their eggs.

Dateonomics