Perceptions of infertility: The roles of age, knowledge, and motivated reasoning

Demographic studies of significant reproductive outcomes, such as infertility and unintended pregnancy, often use measures of perceived infertility, but there are varied understandings and conceptualizations of perceived infertility across studies. Some researchers appear to assume that perceived infertility is consistent with medically defined infertility and implicitly use it as a proxy for medically defined infertility, whereas other researchers do not appear to assume that perceived infertility will align with medically defined infertility, instead treating the two constructs as distinct concepts. Using the motivated reasoning perspective as a sensitizing framework, we contend that both understandings of perceived infertility may be valid if the meaning of the measure varies by age. Using the National Survey of Family Growth, we find support for this hypothesis, confirming that both uses of perceived infertility are valid under certain circumstances.