Infertility: one in two people immediately think that the problem comes from the woman

Carried out in collaboration with Ronan Chastellier, sociologist and lecturer at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, this survey was conducted among 1,050 adults aged 25 to 45, representative of the French population.

The woman in focus

According to the results of this survey, 54% of 25-34 year olds answered that they thought that infertility is a predominantly female problem in the couple.

Paradoxically, this stereotype is rooted in female minds, then 51% of them, all ages combined, considered that fertility was a problem for women, against 42% of men.

For the president of second opinion.fr, Pauline d’Orgeval, “the responsibility for infertility is still placed on women, because procreation is above all a feminine affair”. For her, “This is true in the medical field because often, when there are infertility problems in a couple, the woman will be tested first, long before the man, to find the source of the problem”.

However, we can read in the report “Report on the causes of infertility Towards a national strategy for the fight against infertility” dating from February 2022: “Just as affected by fertility disorders as women (a male cause, isolated or associated with a female cause, is identified in 70% of infertility cases), men are more rarely examined, questioned, advised, and educated on fertility and risk factors for infertility”.

Additional stress and mental load

In line with the first results of this survey, the impact of this question was also assessed.

Unsurprisingly, for 68% of the participants, women bear the majority of the stress linked to infertility within the couple. A vicious circle, since stress is a factor favoring this infertility. An element that “contributes to reinforcing female responsibility for fertility in the couple, particularly around the age of 35″ write the authors of the survey.

Crushing self-stress for women

This stress is also largely transformed into a mental burden, from the age of 35 in women, according to 78% of young adults.

“Women have to undergo a sort of overwhelming self-stress on this subject because they are placed in ‘project mode’ as far as the ‘first child’ is concerned. Infertility stress which can thus turn into macro psychosis in the couple, thus increasing the mental load of women“says sociologist Ronan Chastellier, who participated in carrying out the survey.

A pressure felt both socially but also medically. Indeed, 63% of 25-34 year olds believe that the pressure from the medical profession for women to conceive a child before the age of 35 is as strong or even stronger than 10 years ago.