Masculine Attitudes and Vasectomy Uptake in the United States

Vasectomy has potential to disrupt normative gendered expectations around contraception that place an unequal burden of pregnancy prevention on women and their bodies. Despite this, and evidence linking masculine ideals with men's health behaviours, studies rarely consider how masculinity shapes men's contraceptive practices, including their use of male contraception. We examine how masculine attitudes relate to vasectomy use among a national sample of contracepting men in the United States. Drawing on male respondents from the 2011-2019 National Survey of Family Growth aged 25 to 44 (N = 5899), we find that vasectomy is more common among men who agree that men have greater sexual needs than women. However, this difference is mostly explained by men's number of biological children, which strongly predicts vasectomy uptake. This suggests that men may hold traditional masculine attitudes while disrupting the gendered division of contraceptive labour via vasectomy. We also find that vasectomy status does not differ based on attitudes about men going to the doctor for preventive health care or showing pain. This study has implications for advancing research on the determinants of vasectomy use and men's role in contraception.