Contraception, Sex, and Fertility
Paper Session
Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (CST)
- Chair: Andie Hall, Grinnell College
Hormonal Contraception and Teen Suicide
Abstract
Medical studies have linked hormonal contraceptive use with depression and suicide, a correlation which is most pronounced among teens. I exploit the introduction of the pill in Sweden as a type of natural experiment to evaluate to what extent suicide among women and teens increased in response to the pill’s diffusion. The Swedish setting is well suited for study since young women’s access to contraceptive services were largely unrestricted and pill use heavily skewed toward teenagers and women in their early twenties. Quarterly data on hormonal contraceptive sales across 70 local markets provide a rich source of variation in exposure to the pill from which to link individual cause of death data from over 2.5 million Swedish women. Although the hormonal contraceptives sold during this period were many times stronger than the low dose contraceptives studied in the medical literature, the data do not support the view that the pill’s diffusion led to a significant increase in suicide among young women in Sweden. A model is developed to understand one potential source for the diverging estimates.Stigma, Temptation, & Self-Checkout: The Effect of Self-Checkout Register Adoption on Purchasing Decisions
Abstract
Automation technologies like self-checkout registers at grocery stores may increase consumer welfare by allowing customers to avoid feelings of embarrassment and shame that arise from human interaction. Using high-frequency scanner data from over 30 grocery stores in the Washington D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area over more than 2 years, we exploit the staggered adoption of self-checkout registers to conduct event study analyses. We find large effects of the introduction of self-checkout registers on sales of some stigma items—with diarrhea, constipation, hemorrhoid product sales increasing by 14%, condom sales increasing by 19%, and feminine odor and yeast infection product sales increasing by 28%. Moreover, we find stigma items are much more likely to be purchased at self-checkout registers than the average item sold. In particular, pregnancy tests and condoms are nearly 15 percentage points more likely to be purchased at self-checkout registers than the average item sold. We also find that purchases of single-serving candies (which are typically displayed near registers) decrease after the adoption of self-checkout, which is consistent with a behavioral mechanism in which less time spent passively waiting in line leads to less impulse buying of items displayed near checkout. Overall, our results suggest that self-checkout registers enhance consumer welfare by reducing the shame of purchasing stigma items and reducing the temptation to purchase unhealthy impulse items. The results with respect to condoms and pregnancy tests are especially important as the over-turning of Roe vs Wade has highlighted privacy concerns around reproductive health decisions.The Impact of Delaying Early School Tracking on Women’s Fertility, Marriage and Health
Abstract
This paper presents new causal evidence on how the type of education pursued at an early age affects fertility, marital decisions and health outcomes. I examine the long-term impacts of a French school tracking reform. Prior to the reform, students aged 11 were separated into school tracks based on their prior academic performance. High-performing students were placed in a general education track, which led them to eventually obtain general or technical high school degrees and prepared them for higher education. On the other hand, low-performing students were placed in a vocational education track which precluded them from accessing postsecondary studies. A major issue was that students from low socioeconomic backgrounds were disproportionately assigned to vocational studies. The government enacted a reform which effectively delayed the age at which students are tracked by two years and established a common general education curriculum for those two years. The reform was implemented in the academic year 1977-78 which implied that students born after January 1, 1966 benefited from it while those born before that date were still tracked at age 11. This allows me to use a regression discontinuity design which compares outcomes of students born marginally before and after this date. I show that the reform increased the quality of degrees that individuals obtained. For women from low socioeconomic backgrounds, the reform significantly increased cumulative fertility at age 44. While I find no significant effects on the incidence of marriage, I show that women are more likely to match with spouses who are in high-skilled occupations due to the reform. The reform further increased the age gap between spouses, with women marrying older spouses. Finally, I am currently examining the reform's impact on long-term health outcomes and behaviors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, the incidence of certain diseases and mental health.Discussant(s)
Yoo-Mi Chin
,
Baylor University
Graham Gardener
,
Texas Christian University
Itzik Fadlon
,
University of California-San Diego
Adriana Lleras-Muney
,
University of California-Los Angeles
JEL Classifications
- I2 - Education and Research Institutions