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Weekly Bulletin is. 41, 1996

Fewer women and more men are getting sterilized

In 1995, nearly 7,200 sterilizations were carried out in Norway. The breakdown was 4,500 women and 2,700 men. This is the lowest number of sterilizations registered for women and the highest number for men since Statistics Norway began keeping sterilization statistics in 1984.

There has been a general decline in the number of sterilizations of women throughout the entire period the statistics have been kept. After declining strongly in 1987, the sterilization numbers for men have increased modestly over the last eight years.

For both women and men, the most common age for getting sterilized is between the ages of 35 and 39. The sterilization rate is also relatively high in the age group 40-44. Up to the age of 45, more women than men get sterilized.

There are still more women than men that get sterilized. The gap has, however, clearly narrowed over the past 10 years. In most of the years before 1990, at least three times as many women as men got sterilized each year. 1995 was the first year in which the ratio was less than two.

New Statistics

Sterilizations, 1995.
Statistics are published annually in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics and Official Statistics of Norway (NOS) Health Statistics. More information: Grete Dahlen, tel. +47 21 09 45 47, e-mail: gad@ssb.no or Jens-Kristian Borgan, tel. +47 21 09 45 37, e-mail: jkb@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin is. 41, 1996