Parenting After Medically Assisted Reproduction: Evidence From the UK Millennium Cohort Study

Anna Barbuscia , University of Oxford

Parenting style and practices represent an important channel through which parental background affects children’s outcomes. There are different reasons why the use of fertility treatments may be associated with parenting, including the experience of the treatment itself and the selective characteristics of individuals who access the treatments. Using longitudinal data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), this study examines whether parents who conceived after treatments differ from the other parents on two dimensions of parenting up to when the children are 5 years old. Results show that mothers who used fertility treatments tend to be more involved with the child and are more likely to read every day to the child. However, such differences are related to their socio-economic characteristics rather than to the experience of fertility treatments.

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 Presented in Session 4. Marriage, Family, Households, & Unions