Women are increasingly opting to undergo IVF without a man as they give up on finding ‘Mr Right’.
A move away from the negative social stigma around single parenting has influenced the change as some IVF clinics report that one in 10 women visit on their own to access donor sperm.
About 30,000 women use the reproductive technology each year, The Saturday Telegraph reported.
IVF clinics around Australia have reported an increase in single women using the services (stock image)
Michael Chapman, president of the Fertility Society of Australia, said that single people or gay couples using donor sperm services had doubled over the past five years to an estimated 600-800 women.
‘Finding Mr Right has also become more difficult — maybe women are becoming more choosy or men are not committing themselves in the way they did in the past,’ Mr Chapman said.
The decline in organised religion has also led to greater social acceptance, argues social analyst David Chalke.
‘While organised religion has faded in this country, so too have the morals dictated by it and as a consequence we’re far more relaxed about anything to do about sex, morality or marriage than we have been in the past,’ he said.
Mr Chalke said that a 2001 AustraliaSCAN survey of 2000 adults found that 68 per cent of participants were against single women accessing IVF.
Michael Chapman president of the Fertility Society of Australia said there is less social stigma about single parent families now (stock image)
This flipped in 2018 with new figures showing that 52 per cent of participants were now in favour.
At the Sydney-based clinic Demeter Fertility single women with donor sperm make up 10 per cent of IVF treatment cycles. This number was zero a decade earlier.
At IVF Australia, single women with donor sperm account for 8 per cent of IVF treatment cycles. The clinic, which has 16 locations across NSW, has seen a small increase from 6 per cent in 2014.
At Genea Fertility, records have doubled in the last five years with now 5 per cent of the Sydney-based clients being single women accessing donor sperm.
Monash IVF have recorded that single women using the IVF services were growing 15 per cent each year.
The Victoria-based clinic, which describes itself as ‘the country’s most established IVF clinic and fertility program,’ has also seen an increase in the number of social egg freezing cases due to greater education about long-term fertility options.
A 2001 survey found the 68 per cent of participants were against single women accessing IVF – a number that flipped to 52 per cent in favour in 2018 (stock image)