82% Of Women Freeze Their Eggs Because They Haven't Found The Right Man Yet

In 2009, around 500 women underwent egg freezing. In 2012, when the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) removed the "experimental" label from the procedure, about 2,500 women opted for egg freezing. By 2018, this number had increased to over 10,000. The latest estimate for 2020 was 13,000 women. So, within approximately a decade, the number of women freezing their eggs in the U.S. has increased by around 2,500%. This trend continued to rise during the pandemic, with institutions like New York University’s Langone Fertility Center reporting a 33 percent increase in patients commencing egg-freezing cycles between 2020 and 2021.

Most Women Freeze Their Eggs Because They Haven't Found the Right Man Yet

While egg freezing was originally introduced in the 1990s as a means to preserve fertility for women undergoing cancer treatment, the procedure has since evolved to address a variety of reasons.

Marcia C. Inhorn, a medical anthropologist at Yale University, has dedicated years to studying this very topic. In her recently published book, Motherhood on Ice: the Mating Gap and Why Women Freeze their Eggs, Inhorn reveals the primary reasons for women's decision to freeze their eggs after interviewing 150 women who underwent the procedure.

Contrary to popular belief, the decision was not driven by career or education planning. Instead, 82% of the women Inhorn interviewed were single and chose to freeze their eggs because they had yet to find the right partner. A further 18% were in unstable relationships, while 10% were waiting for their partner to be ready for parenthood.

Inhorn highlighted a "mating gap," a lack of suitable men for college-educated women, as a significant factor in women's struggle to find a suitable partner. This finding is supported by older research, such as a 2013 survey by New York University Langone Health, in which 80% of 478 women identified being single as their main reason for freezing their eggs. Similarly, a 2016 Australian survey found that 90% of 183 women were single when they decided to freeze their eggs.

With the advent of modern fertility treatments, women have been afforded more control over their reproductive timeline. For 38-year-old fertility specialist Valerie Libby, the decision to freeze her eggs at 28 was akin to an insurance policy for her future. After several relationships that didn’t result in the right life partner, coupled with the belief that her mother had gone through early menopause, Libby opted for the procedure that ensured her hopes of motherhood would not be compromised.

She now works at the Shady Grove Fertility Clinic in Atlanta, and confirms that the most common reason for elective egg freezing is being single. Though some of her patients are in unstable relationships, not ready to conceive yet, or are about to receive cancer treatment, it is the uncertainty of finding the right partner that predominantly drives the decision.

As we watch the rates of single, childless women rise higher and higher, coupled with the increase of egg freezing, women may have to start asking themselves if they're doing something wrong with their lifestyle choices. While there may be fewer traditionally masculine men in our midst than in recent decades, perhaps women are looking for the wrong characteristics that might make a man "suitable" for them. Sure, you have a college degree—does that mean you can't even consider dating a man who works a trade job for a living?

Looking around the dating landscape, we're seeing a phenomenon of women whose standards are impeccably high. They demand a man to make at least six figures, have a six-pack, and be over six feet tall. Perhaps at some point they'll look at themselves in the mirror and realize that, while they don't have to settle for a low-quality man who will treat them poorly, they may have to reconsider what their standards are and keep in mind that their "dream man" isn't the lead in their favorite romantic comedy. If they prioritized family, marriage, and motherhood from a younger age rather than being hyper-focused on their career, maybe they wouldn't have such a hard time finding a man who was right for them.