The Economic Consequences of Being Denied an Abortion

Sarah Miller, Laura Wherry and Diana Greene Foster

No 26662, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper evaluates the economic consequences of being denied an abortion due to gestational limits. We link credit report data to the Turnaway Study, the first study to collect high-quality, longitudinal data on women receiving or being denied a wanted abortion in the United States. We compare financial outcomes over a ten-year period for women who had pregnancies just above and below a gestational age limit allowing for a wanted abortion. Outcome trajectories are similar for the two groups of women prior to the abortion encounter. Following the encounter, women who were denied an abortion experience a large increase in financial distress that is sustained for several years. There is also some evidence of a short-term reduction in credit access, but no change in measures of borrowing. Our results highlight important financial and economic consequences of restrictions on abortion access.

JEL-codes: I1 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-hea
Note: CH EH
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published as Sarah Miller & Laura R. Wherry & Diana Greene Foster, 2023. "The Economic Consequences of Being Denied an Abortion," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, vol 15(1), pages 394-437.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26662.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Economic Consequences of Being Denied an Abortion (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26662

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26662

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().