The Postponement of Childbearing and Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Socio-economic and Demographic Aspects

Abstract

Based on empirical research data, this article examines the issue of late maternity in modern Russia, and women’s readiness to use assisted reproductive technologies (ART). The results confirm the trend towards aging motherhood, which has been recorded in Russia since the late 1990s and reveal some correlations between reproductive intentions and the socio-demographic characteristics of different groups of women. The paper shows differences in attitudes towards ART  among women between the ages of 18 and 35, and differences in their readiness to become donors of biological material. The study allowed the reconstruction of three social portraits of  women depending on their reproductive intentions, attitudes towards ART, and reproductive donation, which correlate with the level of education and social status of the respondents. The  article discusses the possible role of ART in solving the demographic problem of late maternity that contributes to the increase of final childlessness rates. As foreign experience shows, regardless of  the availability of ART in a particular country, the use of ART does not have any serious impact on overall fertility rates. However, in the context of the changing age patterns of  motherhood, the  use of ART should be considered not to increase fertility, but rather as a tool for maintaining the number of natural births by mobilizing women of older age groups whose reproductive behavior previously could not have any significant impact on general demographic indicators. Unlike many Western countries, in Russia the potential for using ART as a tool for  maintaining the  fertility in women of older age groups is quite large, but it remains limited by  the  ideological framework of  the state demographic policy.