A new research was conducted by Professor William Ledger, a fertility expert at the University of Sheffield who studied the average cost of producing a baby through in-vitro fertilisation and the benefit to the government over the person's lifetime. The study states that the benefits of providing free fertility treatments to couples could compensate by far the costs to the government.
He along with a group of mathematicians and economists used a modelling exercise and calculated that for the average 13,000 pounds it would cost to provide treatment of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) the government would recoup 143,000 pounds in taxes alone.Addressing a news conference he said, "Helping people with infertility have children is not just a benefit to themselves and their families but also to society," He further added that there would be a huge net positive benefit to the society over that child's lifetime.
Ledger while explaining that the availability of government-funded fertility treatment varies across the country, he said that the treatment was currently less than one per eligible infertile couple. But he explained if it could be increased to at least three treatments per couple, then over the next two to three years the number of babies born through IVF could increase by 10,000.
He then went on to explain that assuming the person was born as an IVF child to a mother of about 35 years of age would over a lifetime normally contribute 143,000 pounds to the state in benefits. Reports show that in the year of 2006 in Britain a live birth happens in about one treatment cycle in four.
Meanwhile in a separate research that was presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), an independent research organisation RAND Europe, had suggested that if European governments start to provide more fertility treatments for infertile couples it could then compensate the population ageing crisis in Europe where the number of people over 65 years old is expected to be twice the present number by 2050.
