Aggregate Effects of the Egg-Freezing Technology and Policy Implications

体外受精(IVF)等辅助生殖技术越来越多地成为生育决定的标准要素，因为它们绕过了因延迟生育或夫妇的生物特征而造成的不孕不育限制。例如，在丹麦，前三次试管受精治疗得到了补贴，2009年所有儿童中约有5%是在试管受精后出生的。随着新技术的发展，女性可以冷冻她们的卵子，以供将来使用，以增加试管受精手术后生下生命的机会。根据丹麦卫生当局的数据，2019年丹麦总共进行了39,974次生育治疗。这些治疗导致了7,465例怀孕，其中2,260例使用了冷冻卵子(与2013年相比增加了四倍)。美国、英国或澳大利亚也有类似的增长记录。越来越多的公司将冷冻卵子作为雇佣合同的一项工资福利。例如，2019年，在员工人数超过500人、5000人和2万人的美国公司中，分别有5%、13%和17%的公司向女性员工提供卵子冷冻作为一种福利。本研究项目的第一个目标是在一个具有内源性教育、劳动力市场参与和生育能力的生命周期模型中描述女性对卵子冷冻和后来的试管受精治疗的需求。我们将使用此模型的校准版本来研究如果卵子冷冻的成本完全由─补贴(例如在丹麦的─)，则冷冻需求将如何变化，以及这如何影响整个生命周期的结果。作为第二个目标，我们将引入公司的观点，并对公司提供卵子冷冻作为最优劳动合同的工作福利的动机进行建模。卵子冷冻技术提供了保险，同时使公司能够提取关于女性对孩子的偏好的私人信息。我们将在劳动力市场匹配模型中将妇女和公司聚集在一起，以确定最优雇佣合同的特征。我们的模型将为女性通过采用卵子冷冻技术至少部分地向公司揭示她们对孩子的未被观察到的偏好以及她们推迟生育的意愿可能是最佳的。无论是补贴冷冻卵子的公共政策，还是提供冷冻卵子作为工作津贴的公司，都可能对性别工资差距、子女对工资和完全生育率的影响产生有趣的影响。为了校准我们的模型，我们将根据丹麦注册数据进行实证分析，以衡量试管受精治疗的成功概率(有没有事先冷冻卵子)。我们将通过一项调查来补充这一数据分析，以衡量女性对卵子冷冻和试管受精治疗成功的主观期望，以及她们在早产和晚产方面对生育的偏好。

Assisted reproductive techniques such as in-vitro fertilization (IVF) are increasingly becoming standard elements of fertility decisions as they circumvent the infertility constraints generated by delayed childbearing or biological characteristics of the couple. E.g., in Denmark, where the first three IVF treatments are subsidized, about 5% of all children were born after IVF in 2009. With new technological developments, women can freeze their eggs for future use to increase the chances of a life-birth after an IVF procedure. According to the Danish health authority, a total of 39,974 fertility treatments were undertaken in Denmark in 2019. These treatments lead to 7,465 pregnancies, 2,260 of which used frozen eggs (a fourfold increase compared to 2013). Similar increases are documented for the US, UK or Australia. Firms increasingly offer egg freezing as a wage perk of an employment contract. For example, in 2019, 5%, 13%, respectively 17% of all American companies with more than 500, 5,000, respectively 20,000, employees offer egg freezing as a benefit to female employees.The first objective of this research project is to characterize the demand of women for egg freezing and later IVF treatment in a life-cycle model with endogenous education, labor market participation and fertility. We will use a calibrated version of this model to investigate how the demand for egg freezing changes if its cost is entirely subsidized ─ as, e.g., in Denmark ─ and how this affects outcomes over the life cycle. As the second objective, we will bring in the firm’s perspective and model the motives for firms to offer egg freezing as a work perk of the optimal labor contract. The egg freezing technology provides insurance and at the same time enables firms to extract private information about the women’s preferences for children. We will bring together women and firms in a labor market matching model to characterize the optimal employment contract. Our model will provide an argument for why it may be optimal for females to reveal through the adoption of the egg freezing technology, at least partially, their unobserved preferences for children to firms as well as their willingness to delay child birth. Both public policy subsidizing egg-freezing and firms offering egg freezing as a work perk may have interesting effects on the gender wage gap, the effects of children on wages and on completed fertility. In order to calibrate our model, we will conduct empirical analyses on the basis of Danish registry data in order to measure success probabilities of IVF treatments (with and without prior egg freezing). We will complement this data analysis by a survey to measure subjective expectations of females on the success of egg-freezing and IVF treatments and their preferences for fertility in terms of early and late birth.