IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socres/v22y2017i2p20-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘I Suppose I Think to Myself, That's the Best Way to Be a Mother’: How Ideologies of Parenthood Shape Women's Use of Social Egg Freezing Technology

Author

Listed:
  • Kylie Baldwin

Abstract

The age distribution of women giving birth in England and Wales, as well as many other Western countries, has changed significantly in recent decades with growing numbers of women having children later in their reproductive lives. However, motherhood at an older age is positively associated with greater risks to mother and child including complications during pregnancy and birth as well as an increased risk of age-related infertility. In response to the increasing numbers of women attempting childbearing at an older age, a new form of technology has emerged, one which has the promissory potential to enable women to preserve a number of healthy young eggs for potential future use after the decline of their nature fertility. This technology is egg freezing, or as it is often referred, egg freezing for social reasons. This paper will examine the technology of egg freezing and its use for social reasons and will argue that current lay and media representations of this technology which infer a deliberative ‘choice’ on behalf of the user to delay motherhood, to pursue career advancement, does not adequately or accurately reflect the experiences of women engaging with this technology. Instead, and by drawing on data collected in 31 interviews with female users of this technology, this paper will suggest that women's decision to engage in egg freezing as well as their perceptions about the timing of motherhood can be seen as being shaped by contemporary parenting culture and ideologies of parenthood. Furthermore, this paper will examine how these ideologies and expectations about parenthood are shaped by the demographic profile of the users of this technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Kylie Baldwin, 2017. "‘I Suppose I Think to Myself, That's the Best Way to Be a Mother’: How Ideologies of Parenthood Shape Women's Use of Social Egg Freezing Technology," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 22(2), pages 20-34, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:22:y:2017:i:2:p:20-34
    DOI: 10.5153/sro.4187
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.4187
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5153/sro.4187?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Catherine Waldby, 2015. "THE OOCYTE MARKET AND SOCIAL EGG FREEZING: From scarcity to singularity," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(3), pages 275-291, June.
    2. Campbell, Patricia, 2011. "Boundaries and risk: Media framing of assisted reproductive technologies and older mothers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 265-272, January.
    3. repec:mpr:mprres:4983 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maria Stoicescu & Cosima RughiniÈ™, 2022. "Swiping as a Single Mom: A First Look at the Experiences of Single Mothers Who Use Tinder," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 27(4), pages 964-983, December.
    2. Inhorn, Marcia C. & Birenbaum-Carmeli, Daphna & Vale, Mira D. & Patrizio, Pasquale, 2020. "Abrahamic traditions and egg freezing: Religious Women's experiences in local moral worlds," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laura Perler & Carolin Schurr & Nora Komposch & Mirko Winkel & Pedro Alejandro Cervantez Rodríguez, 2024. "Reproductive geopolitics: Governing in/fertile bodies in Mexico’s past and present," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 42(1), pages 102-124, February.
    2. Kılıç, Azer & Göçmen, İpek, 2018. "Fate, morals and rational calculations: Freezing eggs for non-medical reasons in Turkey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 19-27.
    3. Lankester, Ally J. & Bohensky, Erin & Newlands, Maxine, 2015. "Media representations of risk: The reporting of dredge spoil disposal in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park at Abbot Point," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 149-161.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:22:y:2017:i:2:p:20-34. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.