Milewski Nadja, Haug Sonja
Federal Institute for Population Research, Wiesbaden, Germany.
Eastern Bavarian Technical University, Regensburg, Germany.
Reprod Biomed Soc Online. 2021 Dec 31;14:226-238. doi: 10.1016/j.rbms.2021.11.007. eCollection 2022 Mar.
This study examined awareness about fertility among immigrant women and non-migrants in Germany. The social relevance of infertility and fertility treatment is increasing in Western countries due to continually low overall birth rates, a high rate of childlessness, and a gap between the desired and actual numbers of children. While there is growing interest in infertility and reproductive medicine in general, previous studies have rarely included immigrant or ethnic minorities in Europe. This study investigated whether knowledge on the age-related fertility decline (ARFD) varies between migrant groups and the majority group, and the role of education. Working hypotheses were drawn from theoretical considerations on frameworks of migrant assimilation. The analysis was based on data collected in a social science pilot study on reproductive medicine, representative of the general population ('NeWiRe' 2014-2015). The sample included 962 women aged 18-50 years living in Germany. Approximately 81% of the sample were immigrants who originated from Turkey, Poland, the Balkan countries or countries of the (post-Soviet) Commonwealth of Independent States. While rather poor overall, knowledge on ARFD was found to be significantly lower in the migrant groups compared with the majority group. This minority-group disadvantage cannot be explained by sociodemographic or cultural variables. Future research should include minority groups in empirical studies on awareness about fertility in order to better understand the causes of this disadvantage, and the potential reproductive needs of migrants.
本研究调查了德国移民女性和非移民女性对生育能力的认知情况。由于总体出生率持续低迷、不育率高以及期望子女数量与实际子女数量之间存在差距，不育和生育治疗在西方国家的社会相关性日益增加。虽然人们对不育和生殖医学总体上的兴趣日益浓厚，但以往的研究很少将欧洲的移民或少数族裔纳入其中。本研究调查了不同移民群体与多数群体之间在与年龄相关的生育能力下降（ARFD）方面的知识差异，以及教育的作用。研究假设源自对移民同化框架的理论思考。分析基于在一项关于生殖医学的社会科学试点研究中收集的数据，该研究代表了一般人群（“NeWiRe”，2014 - 2015年）。样本包括962名年龄在18至50岁之间居住在德国的女性。样本中约81%为移民，她们来自土耳其、波兰、巴尔干国家或（后苏联）独立国家联合体国家。虽然总体知识水平相当低，但研究发现，与多数群体相比，移民群体对ARFD的了解明显更少。少数群体的这一劣势无法用社会人口统计学或文化变量来解释。未来的研究应将少数群体纳入关于生育意识的实证研究中，以便更好地理解这一劣势的成因以及移民潜在的生殖需求。
