I am needing the fertility and infertility rates for the United
States, Europe, Asia, and Australia specifically.  (And the rates
generally worldwide.)

A break-down by age, demographics and social economics.

Any projections for the next few years also.

Thanks!

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 31 Jan 2006 20:20 PST

jas8844-ga,

Can you say a bit more about what you mean by fertility rates and
infertility rates?


I'm asking, because the two terms are not generally used as direct
opposites, and can have different meanings to different folks.  For
instance, there's female infertility, male infertility, or family
(couple) infertility.


Also, there's very little trends data on infertility.  International
statistics are few and far between.  A comprehensive set of data
exists for most of the world from 1991.  Updated statistics are more
sporadic, though there's one fairly recent summary that I'm aware of
regarding infertility in the developing world.  Here's a summary table
from that report:



http://esnips.com/web/GoogleAnswers 


Click on the file called [ infertility stats ]



Let me know your thoughts on all this.

Thanks,

pafalafa-ga

---

Clarification of Question by jas8844-ga on 31 Jan 2006 20:35 PST

What I am looking for with (fertility & infertility) is the number of
people who are trying to get pregnant.... but are not yet successful. 
The snip you showed would also be helpful though.

The premise is for stats on hoping/"trying"/failing at having children.

I hope this helps clarify.

jas8844-ga,


Thanks for your feedback.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a very comprehensive, recent report
on infertility in developing countries that summarizes most of the
available information.  The report includes statistics on "involuntary
fertility" -- those who are trying to have children, without success.


For the countries you asked about -- the US, Australia, European
countries, etc -- the picture is a bit more generic.  Statistics are
available, and tend to look like these, below:


===============

http://www.ghs.org/hospital/10067/

Greenville Hospital System Women's Hospital 

About Infertility

...Infertility affects more than 15 percent of couples trying to get pregnant.

...It is defined as the ?inability to conceive within one year despite
having unprotected sexual intercourse.?

...Problems with sperm account for almost 40 percent of infertility.

...age-related fertility problems are far more likely in women. In
men, fertility declines after age 50, but for women, fertility begins
to decline at age 30.

...Only four percent of women ages 15 to 24 have infertility problems.
That statistic more than triples to 13 percent between the ages of 24
and 34. By age 40, more than a third of women experience fertility
problems; 87 percent of women are infertile by age 45.


===============


http://www.cdc.gov/ART/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Infertility

...Of the approximately 62 million women of reproductive age in 2002,
about 1.2 million, or 2%, had an infertility-related medical
appointment within the previous year

...10% had an infertility-related medical visit at some point in the past

...7% of married couples in which the woman was of reproductive age
(2.1 million couples) reported that they had not used contraception
for 12 months and the woman had not become pregnant


===============



Are these the sorts of data you're looking for?

Are you interested in the developing countries data as well?


I'll continue my research on this question but in the mean time, if
you could let me know a bit more specifically what you're after, it
would help to focus my additional efforts.


Thanks a lot,

pafalafa-ga

---

Clarification of Answer by pafalafa-ga on 01 Feb 2006 13:19 PST

jas8844-ga,

I'm very sorry.  I meant to post the above as a Request for
Clarification, rather than as as answer to your question.  I pressed
the wrong button!


Get back to me with your thoughts whenever you can.  In the mean time,
I will ask the editors to have the "answer" removed so that the
question opens back up.


paf

---

Request for Answer Clarification by jas8844-ga on 01 Feb 2006 14:33 PST

Dear pafalafa-ga,

Not a problem with pushing the wrong button.  Been there.  I will go
ahead and pay you, just please add in this last clarification.  I love
your answer so far.

Thanks again!

**Any additional data that you can find on the INCREASE of couples
needing or seeking assistance to become pregnant.  (anywhere) would be
very, very helpful.

---

Clarification of Answer by pafalafa-ga on 01 Feb 2006 20:12 PST

Wow!. Thanks...for being so understanding, and for everything else.  

As far as anything resembling 'trends' information, the most complete
statistics come out of the data from the developing world:


http://pdf.dec.org/pdf_docs/PNADB836.pdf
Infecundity, Infertility, and Childlessness in Developing Countries


There's probably a lot more numbers, details, analysis in this report
than you're looking for, but the key table of interest, as far as
trends go, is Table 11 of the report:


Table 11:
Trends in the proportion of currently married women who have no living
children and who have had no fertile pregnancies


The table compares data from most recent surveys, to older data.  In
general, infertility rates are declining -- that is, more families
that want to have have babies are able to do so.


Reading the table can be tricky, but here's what the data for
Indonesia look like, just to give you an example:


Data is shown for four survey years over a ten year period:  1987,
1991, 1994, and 1997.

Over that span, the column over on the left shows the rate of "No
fertile pregnancies" for two age groups:  40-44 year old women, and
25-49 year old women.

For both those groups, the infertility rate declined.  For instance,
in the older group, rates were:


1987 -- 3.6
1991 -- 3.8
1994 -- 2.8
1997 -- 2.9

That is, in 1987, 3.6% of the women in Indonesia (in the 40-44 age
group were experiencing infertility, but this percentage dropped to
2.9% in 1997.


Whew!


===============

Oddly, the data seem to be much more comprehensive in the developing
world, than in the US or other 'first world' countries.  Typical is
this sort of information from the CDC, the nation's authoratative
source of health-statistics:


http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/fertile.htm
Infertility


--Number of women ages 15-44 with impaired ability to have children: 6.1 million

--Number of women who've ever used infertility services: 9.2 million

--Number of married couples that are infertile: 2.1 million

--Number of women using infertility services: 9.3 million

Source: Fertility, Family Planning, and Women's Health: New Data from
the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, table 49


You can see, the data come from a 1995 survey, and there doesn't seem
to be much in the way of more recent information, or older information
to compare the statistics to.



Hope that all helps.

If there's anything else I can do for you, just holler.


paf

Thanks so much!