Life After Experiences of Infertility Treatment: Akirameru—The First Step for Empowering

Although there is some awareness of how women in infertility treatment have suffered physically and psychologically, it is a little known fact that there is a limit to the “cures” that can be achieved even with assisted reproductive technologies. Here, I describe how the existence of ART affects women’s decision making about their lives. Through life histories of women who underwent infertility treatment, I explore the factors which cause their suffering and conflict—that they cannot give up on having children even though they want to give up—as follows: (1) The models of their ideal family which have been formed throughout their lives is ‘ordinary’ family; (2) they experienced the alienation from their own bodies in infertility treatment; (3) they are afraid that they deviate from the community norm because of infertility; (4) their narrative shows their suffering from infertility is caused by tense relationship in family and community. These factors make women in infertility belittle themselves. Through their life histories, I conclude that they need to be empowered if they want to akirameru (give up) having children after prolonged infertility treatment. To paraphrase, a woman who suffers from infertility and infertility treatment is empowered when she becomes unafraid to deviated from cultural norms.

A Choice Experiment Approach to the Valuation of Mortality

This paper presents an integrated framework for evaluating the reduction of several types of mortality risk using a Choice Experiment (CE) approach, a type of stated preference technique. Using this approach, we can distinguish the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for the amount of risk reduction from the MWTP for the opportunity of risk reduction and therefore calculate the “Quantity-based” Value of a Statistical Life. The risks in our survey include mortality risks due to accident, cancer, and heart disease. The Quantity-based VSL is calculated to be 350 million JPY (in 2002 Japanese Yen, about 2.9 million US dollars). Furthermore, we analyzed the influence of subjective risk perception and population characteristics of the respondents on their MWTP. Estimated results suggest that it is unnecessary to adjust the VSL according to the differences in the type of risk if the VSL is calculated using an adequate approach. However, adjustments for the timing of risk reduction and population characteristics are found to be significant for the execution of benefit transfer.JEL Classification: I18, D81, J17