Can technological change account for the sexual revolution?

John Kennes and John Knowles

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University

Abstract: By reducing the risk of unwanted parenthood, more effective contraception reduces the cost of sex outside of marriage, increasing the value of single life. Could this explain why marriage and birth rates declined in the U.S. after 1970?. We illustrate our hypothesis with a one-period example. We then extend the analysis to allow for repeated matching over many periods, modeling the shotgun-marriage, contraception- method and abortion margins. We use US survey data on contraception, sexual activity and family dynamics to calibrate the model for the 1970s, and then compute the effects of liberalizing access to contraception and abortion. The results suggest the hypothesis can explain 60% of the behavioral shifts associated with the sexual revolution.

Keywords: Two-Sided Search; Family; Family Economics; Household Formation; Marriage; Marriage Rate; Premarital; Single Mother; Single Parent; Fertility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 E13 J12 J22 O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 55
Date: 2013-04-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa and nep-dem
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aah:aarhec:2013-07

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