Impacts of Access to Reproductive Healthcare
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM (CST)
- Chair: Kate Pennington, U.S. Census Bureau
The Effect of Long-Acting Reversible Contraception Uptake on CPS Involvement of Children
Abstract
About half of all pregnancies are unintended. Unplanned births are correlated with poor health outcomes for mothers and infants, and can increase family stress and economic vulnerability, key predictors of child abuse and neglect. LARCs are the most effective form of contraception, but have been underutilized. No/low-cost access to LARC methods have been associated with large impacts on births. One potential implication is whether increased LARC access may be associated with decreased child maltreatment. This may occur because parents experiencing planned births are economically and psychosocially prepared than those experiencing unplanned births and/or because they experience less parental stress and/or more preferable birth timing. We use event study design, DiD, and synthetic control methods combined with administrative data from NCANDS and variation in state LARC programming to estimate the causal effects of LARC access on CPS involvement of future birth cohorts.Economic Shocks, Inequality, and Unintended Fertility
Abstract
It is well documented that negative economic shocks reduce fertility demand. In this study, we formalize a model in which negative shocks also impact fertility through a countervailing effect on healthcare access. For a disadvantaged minority of women, negative shocks can reduce access to reproductive healthcare, increasing unintended births. Combining county-level unemployment shocks during the Great Recession with birth records, we find that high exposure to unemployment induced fertility decline among White women but increased fertility among Black women. We supplement our analysis using detailed individual data from the National Survey of Family Growth. We document that the Great Recession reduced fertility desire across all groups, with economically disadvantaged women experiencing slightly greater declines. However, realized fertility declines are concentrated among relatively more advantaged women, with women who are both Black and disadvantaged experiencing no decline (or an insignificant increase). Our findings suggest that the impact of economic shocks on fertility differ by race and socioeconomic status and that the most disadvantaged women may experience increases in unintended fertility as a result of a shock.Changes in Abortion Access and Obtainment in a Post-Roe America
Abstract
Court watchers widely expect the United States Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade in the summer of 2022, returning the authority to enforce abortion bans to the states. I am tracking states bans, abortion facilities openings and closures, and surveying appointment availability, and I plan to continue these efforts through the summer and fall of 2022 to provide information on changing abortion access in a post-Roe America. The proposed paper and presentation will provide timely information on how access changed in 2022 and what the economics literature has to tell us about the likely effects of these changes on abortions and births. I will use data from SafeGraph tracking cell phone movements and visitor counts at abortion facilities to measure effects of travel distance and congestion at remaining providers on abortion obtainment. This will provide an early preview of effects we cannot measure with official vital statistics data, which takes years to release.Discussant(s)
Caitlin Myers
,
Middlebury College
Kate Pennington
,
University of California-Berkeley
Joanna Venator
,
Univeristy of Rochester
Christine Durrance
,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
JEL Classifications
- I1 - Health
- J1 - Demographic Economics