What do friends and the media tell us? How different information channels affect women's risk perceptions of age-related female infertility

摘要

This paper investigates through which channels women receive information about the general risk levels of age-related female infertility and how the different channels affect women's perceptions of the risk. We find that the media reaches women of all ages, while only about one woman in four has received information from the health care system. We also find that friends and relatives are an important source of information that affects women's risk perceptions. However, the information from friends and relatives seems to generally make female recipients more likely to overestimate the risks. We conclude that the information sources have different, sometimes even opposite, impacts on the risk perceptions, possibly making it harder for a woman to be aware of the true general risks of age-related infertility.