ABSTRACT

Whether measuring aspects of male fertility using standard survey items or exploring men's procreative lives using qualitative, in-depth interviews, researchers face significant methodological challenges. The challenges, stemming in part from the gendered realities of reproductive physiology, vary in form and magnitude with the basic research objectives of survey (demographic) and qualitative (interpretive) methods. For example, precisely documenting male fertility is impossible because men's sexual partners sometimes withhold information about their sexual history (multiple partners near the time of conception) and fertility events (abortion, miscarriage, birth) that may involve the men. Demographers also have long argued that men's self-reported fertility histories are less consistent over time (and thus less reliable) than those of women (Mott, Baker, Haurin, & Marsiglio, 1983; Mott & Gryn, 2001). In addition, social psychologists stress that the complexity of men's subjective experiences surrounding procreation has been inadequately conceptualized and studied (Marsiglio & Hutchinson, 2002).