New international study: Which country has higher rates of involuntary childlessness — Israel or the US?

Every Rosh Hashanah, annual reports are released focused on birth rates, the average number of children per family, and other population growth data. However, there’s another side to these statistics: experiences of involuntary childlessness, in which people who wish to be parents are unable to for medical, social, or institutional reasons. A new study reveals that these experiences are far more widespread than commonly thought, especially among the LGBTQ+ community. The researchers note that an international comparison of this phenomenon is important, as countries vary widely in the degree of encouragement they offer for childbearing, the assistance they provide to prospective parents, and the barriers they place that can impede the path to parenthood. The current study compared responses from participants in the United States with those in Israel.

The study was led by Prof. Geva Shenkman-Lachberg of Reichman University and Dr. Doyle Tate of the University of North Florida. The researchers hypothesized that Americans would report higher rates of involuntary childlessness than Israelis, due to the far more limited government assistance in the US compared to the broad family-support policies in Israel. They also hypothesized that LGBTQ+ individuals would experience higher rates of involuntary childlessness than heterosexuals, given the history of discriminatory legislation and institutional and social challenges they face on the journey to parenthood.

The study surveyed 1,739 young adults without children — 1,026 from the US and 713 from Israel. The sample included both men and women and respondents of diverse sexual orientations: in Israel 387 identified as heterosexual and 326 as LGBTQ+, while in the US 604 identified as heterosexual and 422 as LGBTQ+.

As the researchers predicted, the findings showed that rates of involuntary childlessness were higher among participants from the US than among those from Israel. Additionally, in line with their hypothesis, across the entire sample, LGBTQ+ respondents reported experiencing the phenomenon at a much higher rate than heterosexual respondents: 60% compared to 38%, respectively.

The study’s most notable findings concerned the gap between groups in the respective countries: in the US, the disparity was moderate — 52% of LGBTQ+ respondents versus 44% of heterosexuals reported involuntary childlessness — whereas in Israel the difference was much larger: 68% of LGBTQ+ respondents compared to only 32% of heterosexuals.

Prof. Geva Shenkman Lachberg of the Dina Recanati School of Medicine: “The findings show that public policies that support parenthood — such as those in place in Israel, where there is widespread access to state-funded fertility treatments — can reduce experiences of involuntary childlessness in the general population. At the same time, despite remarkable progress in surrogacy legislation, LGBTQ+ people in Israel continue to encounter institutional and social barriers that appear to increase their sense of involuntary childlessness compared to heterosexuals.”

Published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, the study suggests that the adoption of broad pro-natalist policies and practices in the United States could help reduce rates of involuntary childlessness, while in Israel, the key challenge is to create equality in parenthood for all populations.