Stratified reproduction is a widely used social scientific concept, created by Shellee Colen, that describes imbalances in the ability of people of different races, ethnicities, nationalities, classes, and genders to reproduce and nurture their children. Researchers use the concept to describe the "power relations by which some categories of people are empowered to nurture and reproduce, while others are disempowered," as Rayna Rapp and Faye D. Ginsburg defined the term in 1995.
Concept Globally, women are confined to different societal standards on reproduction. The ability to choose whether women want to become pregnant is not available to all women. Contraception and abortions can be illegal or difficult to obtain depending on location or socioeconomic status. Women's experience of child birth has varied from required minimum number of children a mother must birth and honors for overachieving the set minimums to a restricted the number of children per household. In a broader sense, stratified reproduction asserts that certain categories of people are encouraged and coerced to reproduced while others are systematically discouraged to do so. The capacity to control one's reproductive choices is unequally distributed among race, sexual orientation, gender, class and socioeconomic status. Stratified reproduction also extends beyond the aspect of reproduction to the extent of conception, contraception, prenatal medical care, childcare, and the mother's role in their child's life. In 1984, Shellee Colen coined the term "stratified reproduction" when studying West Indian childcare workers in New York City, who typically worked for wealthier white families. Colen highlighted differences between white and West Indian mothers’ ability to choose how they each care for their children. The white mothers hire a nanny to carry out the routine tasks of childcare while the West Indian mothers forgo the ability to raise their children so that they can financially support them. Colen drew the conclusion that child birth and childcare is experienced, valued, and rewarded differently depending on a mother's socioeconomic status and availability of resources.
Studies using the concept Since the emergence of the term stratified reproduction, researchers have applied its concepts to analyze the different effects of varying social factors on reproduction and childcare. Rayna Rapp and Faye D. Ginsburg pioneered the application of stratified reproduction to different societies to emphasize the variation to which women experienced reproduction and childcare. In Rapp and Ginsburg's book, Conceiving the New World Order: The Global politics of Reproduction, they discuss several societies that limited women's choice on reproduction and childcare due to socioeconomic factors. They touch on Shellee Colen's research on West Indian nannies in New York and how they are unable to participate in their own child's childcare, because they must immigrate to America to find work to support their family. They also include Gail Kligman's research on abortion bans in Romania under Ceausescu’s rule. State policy required the Romanian women to birth at least four children in hopes of increasing the population for a more efficient socialist country. They also discuss China’s limit on the maximum number of children per household, and low-income African American women’s struggle to obtain proper contraceptives and abortions. Rapp and Ginsburg concluded that “global and local socioeconomic relations that form the context for stratified reproduction, whereby ‘some categories of people are empowered to nurture and reproduce, while others are disempowered’”, and that cultural ideologies and state policies reinforce the stratified reproduction implanted by socioeconomic factors. The scope of use of the stratified reproduction framework is not limited to women’s access to contraceptives or lack thereof. Researchers are applying stratified reproduction to the health of the mothers and children. Infertility has also been linked to the effects of stratified reproduction. Scarce financial resources deters mothers from being able to reach effective medical services to help prevent infertility.
Infertility options and stratification
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