Coverage of infertility treatment and fertility outcomes

Abstract

Policy interventions that increase insurance coverage for infertility treatments may affect fertility trends, and ultimately, population age structures. However, such policies have ignored the overall impact of coverage on fertility. We examine short-term and long-term effects of increased insurance coverage for infertility on the timing of first births and on women's total fertility rates. Our main contribution is to show that infertility mandates enacted in the United States during the 80s and 90s did not increase the total fertility rates of women by the end of their reproductive lives. We also show evidence that these mandates induced women to put off motherhood.

The power of time: The impact of free IVF on Women’s human capital investments

“…This report also shows that Israel, in the first place in 2004, had almost twice as many treatment cycles per million population as Denmark, in second, and almost 8 times as in the US.4 Most of the research using US insurance mandates focuses on the women who themselves use IVF(Velez et al, 2014;Hamilton and McManus, 2012; Schmidt, 2012, 2006;Bundorf et al, 2007;Buckles, 2013;Schmidt, 2007Schmidt, , 2005Machado and Sanz-de Galdeano, 2015). A smaller body of literature looks at the impact on younger women(Ohinata, 2011;Abramowitz, 2017Abramowitz, , 2014Buckles, 2007;Kroeger and La Mattina, 2017).…”

Older Yet Fairer: How Extended Reproductive Time Horizons Reshaped Marriage Patterns in Israel

“…Our research builds on previous work that exploits variation in mandated insurance coverage of IVF across US states and over time, showing that IVF materially impacts the fertility of women who use it (Velez et al, 2014;Hamilton and McManus, 2012;Schmidt, 2012, 2006;Bundorf, Henne and Baker, 2007;Buckles, 2013;Schmidt, 2007Schmidt, , 2005Machado and Sanz-de Galdeano, 2015). This line of literature provides evidence that when coverage goes up, more women use IVF, fertility rates for older mothers go up, and multiple births rise.…”

Effect of inclusion of assisted reproductive technologies in the state health insurance programme in Russia

“…Publications on the topic of this research are scarce both in domestic and foreign literature. ART studies are divided into: studies of factors of ART usage (Adamson 2009;Bennett 2016;Wu 2019;Dadaeva, Baranova 2019); studies of the impact of different types of insurance on the results of using the technology (Baker et al 2007;Hamilton, McManus 2011;Bitler, Schmidt 2012;Buckles 2013;Crawford et al 2016); estimates of the impact of ART on birth rates (Schmidt 2005(Schmidt , 2007Burcin et al 2014;Machado, Sanz-de-Galdeano 2015;Vasilyeva, Peregontseva 2016); assessment of the impact of ART development on reproductive behaviour (Abramowitz 2014(Abramowitz , 2017(Abramowitz , 2019Kroeger, La Mattina 2017;Lundborg et al 2017); cost-benefit assessments of technology (Baird et al 2015;Knies et al 2015;Kulikov et al 2017;Settumba et al 2019). Russian publications are mostly descriptive and introduce readers to the dynamics of technology development in Russia and in the world (Nifantova, Krivenko 2014;Rusanova, Gordeev 2016;Isupova, 2017), and in recent years there have been studies evaluating the benefits of ART for the state (Kulikov et al 2017).…”

“…Studies show the presence of a significant positive relationship between the number of ART procedures and the total fertility rate (TFR) in Europe (Burcin et al 2014). Another result was achieved when analyzing the impact of the growth of government support for infertility treatment on TFR and the age of the mother at birth of the first child in the United States (Machado et al 2015). The probit model shows that insurance mandates for infertility treatment in the 1980-1990s did not affect the total birth rate of cohorts, rather, they led to a shift in the births calendar and postponement of motherhood.…”