Julia McQuillan, professor in the Department of Sociology, had her research on infertility treatment seeking published in the journal Social Inclusion.
In Europe, more people are delaying having children and seeking medical help. There is evidence of social disparities, but it's not clear how they vary across stages of the help-seeking process.
McQuillan and her coauthors used wave 1 of the German Family Demographic Panel Study (FReDA) and found that income and marital status were associated with help‐seeking, but not education and migration background. They also looked at how the high cost of advance treatments and reimbursement eligibility affected the results. Additionally, they found that cultural and knowledge-based factors may have a role in the process.
"Social Disparities Across Different Stages of Medical Help‐Seeking to Have a Child in Germany" is available online. The study was coauthored with Arthur Greil of Alfred University and two researchers with the Federal Institute for Population Research in Germany, Jasmin Passet-Wittig and Martin Bujard.
