New research has found that women who choose to freeze their eggs do so to give them time to find the right partner and not for career reasons.

In the first study of its kind into  women’s personal motivations for freezing their eggs, researcher Kylie Baldwin interviewed 31 women who had decided to preserve their fertility for social, rather than medical reasons.  Baldwin said that her findings contradicted the common view, often presented in the media, that women undergo the procedure to enable them to further their careers.

“I was suspicious of this from the outset, wondering whether women would spend at least £6000/-,  a  technology that was far  from guaranteed in order to climb the carrer  ladder.”  She said.  ‘None cited career as reason for freezing eggs,” she added.

Kylie Baldwin is the Lecturer at Leicester’s De Montfort University.

“All of them were waiting for the right partner, who was

going to be a good father for their children.”  In fact some of the women said they had done well in their careers not because they  had frozen their eggs, but precisely because they aren’t been able to find a suitable partner and weren’t in a relationship.

A number of study participants, who were aged 30  to 44 and were from the UK, US and Norway, specially they wanted to meet a man who would be a “hands on father “.  According to the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA), more than 800 women in Britain froze their eggs in 2014, which shows  substantial increase from previous years.

Certain multinational companies have announced they will offer the treatment to female employees, fuelling notions of egg freezing as a career choice.

The lack of suitable partner was cited as a major reason for registering for the procedure and they discloses that “ women aged over 38 were most likely to give ‘no male partner’  as a response to their cause of infertility.