In a news roundup Katy of Jezebel passes along news about contraception in the U.S.
Out of married U.S. women, only 16% are currently on the pill, compared to 29% in the UK and more than 40% in the Netherlands and France. Surprisingly, sterilization is a much more popular option in America.
1 in 4 married ladies here have had their tubes tied, while most other countries that reported figures have sterilization rates below 10%. These patterns also appear to apply to all women – not just the ones who have tied the knot.
Statistics for contraceptive use by men is surprisingly sketchy — since virtually all the focus around contraception and pregnancy is on women, including focus on statistics-gathering, virtually all information about men and contraception has to be extrapolated from assumptions that women who use contraceptives tend to have male partners. Oh, and I say “surprisingly” because men still have direct access over three kinds of contraception: condoms, withdrawal, and vasectomies, with the most recently invented (vasectomies) still being nearly 200 years old! So how long would that questionnaire be anyway? But I digress…
The best… or at least most frequently-cited estimate for male sterilization in the U.S. is one in six men over age 35 or, I think, a little more than 15%.
I had a hard time
Submitted by K (not verified) on Fri, 2010-05-28 14:11.I had a hard time understanding those stats at first because they only looked at married women. I almost missed that part…
So what about all the single ladies?
[I’m guessing most single women, like most single men and nearly all everybody under age 35, don’t go for sterilization. Good question about single women and the pill but my understanding is that Americans are also generally more wary of hormonal contraception than in the other countries in the study. Thanks, K. —fl]
I wonder how much health care
Submitted by chingona (not verified) on Fri, 2010-05-28 22:09.I wonder how much health care costs play into this. If you’re paying $30 a month for the pill under your health insurance (which I was, and that number does not seem unusual among my friends), and you can get sterilized for a $500 deductible, then your sterilization pays for itself in a less than a year and a half. Even with a $1,000 deductible, it pays for itself in less than three years. The deal looks even better if you’re worried about not having health insurance in the future because you lost your job.
And in addition to wondering about attitudes toward hormonal contraception here vs. there, I also wonder about attitudes toward sterilization over there. Are their cultural issues that make them shy away from surgery/permanent solutions? Are vasectomy rates higher or lower there?
Personally, I have zero interest in being on hormonal birth control for the next 15 or so years. I don’t want to have to remember to take it. I don’t want to deal with the side effects. And while the most recent studies have shown moderate benefits to long-term use of the pill, I’m not particularly interested in taking part in that mass experiment.
Couple other things that came
Submitted by chingona (not verified) on Fri, 2010-05-28 22:51.Couple other things that came up in comments at Jezebel:
A lot of women will get their tubes tied at the same time they’re having a c-section. European countries have much lower c-section rates, so you’re talking about having to make a point of getting it done, rather than having a doctor offer to take care of it “while we’re in there anyway.”
American women are more likely to have other health problems that make the pill more dangerous for them, especially after 35.
[They’re obviously going to be a much easier option when you’re having a c-section but for some reason I have the firm impression they’re considered relatively easy immediately after vaginal delivery — at least I’m pretty sure hearing that’s when a lot of them are performed. I agree with you that especially if you’re done having your planned children it’s a lot more convenient, and probably way less risk healthwise to consider sterilization. I hadn’t thought about the cost angle but you’re right about that too, of course. Plus an awful lot of women, as you say, don’t enjoy optimum health on hormonal contraception so to the extent that feeling well and being technically well are two different things that’s another consideration. Thanks, Chingona. —fl]
Sterilisation, for both men
Submitted by Anonymous French (not verified) on Sat, 2010-05-29 01:10.Sterilisation, for both men and women, has only been legal in France since 1999. Before that, it was legally considered as self-mutilation. Even now, I don’t hear about it a lot. As a country, we simply don’t have a tradition of sterilisation yet.
[Interesting, Anonymous. I wonder if something similar has been true elsewhere in western Europe? Anyway, that would certainly help explain why hormonal contraception is more common at least in France compared to the U.S. Thanks! —fl]