Money Matters: Estimating the Impact of Differential Access to Birth Control and Federal Funding on Women's Fertility Outcomes

Issues surrounding the legality of abortion, access to oral contraceptives, and government funding for family planning and reproductive health services are hotly contested debates in both private and public spheres. Throughout... [ view full abstract ]

Issues surrounding the legality of abortion, access to oral contraceptives, and government funding for family planning and reproductive health services are hotly contested debates in both private and public spheres. Throughout the entirety of American history, critics and advocates have vocalized opinions for both the criminalization and liberalization of access to reproductive control options. As part of an Economics senior thesis, this research seeks to estimate the impact of legal access to abortion, legal access to oral contraceptives, and access to federal funding for reproductive health and family planning services on women's fertility outcomes. Specifically, the identification strategy used in this paper exploits temporal variation in when states granted minors the ability to consent to oral contraceptives and abortion and variation in when counties rolled out Title X funding following its establishment in 1970. County fertility rates for women under the age 24 is the estimated outcome.