Planning parenthood: the Affordable Care Act young adult provision and pathways to fertility

Joelle Abramowitz ()
Additional contact information
Joelle Abramowitz: University of Michigan

Journal of Population Economics, 2018, vol. 31, issue 4, No 4, 1097-1123

Abstract: Abstract This paper investigates the effect of the Affordable Care Act young adult provision on fertility and related outcomes. The expected effect of the provision on fertility is not clear ex ante. By expanding insurance coverage to young adults, the provision may affect fertility directly through expanded options for obtaining contraceptives as well as through expanded options for obtaining pregnancy-, birth-, and infant-related care, and these may lead to decreased or increased fertility, respectively. In addition, the provision may also affect fertility indirectly through marriage or labor markets, and the direction and magnitude of these effects is difficult to determine. This paper considers the effect of the provision on fertility as well as the contributing channels by applying difference-in-differences type methods using the 2008–2010 and 2012–2013 American Community Survey, 2006–2009 and 2012–2013 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention abortion surveillance data, and 2006–2010 and 2011–2013 National Survey of Family Growth. Results suggest that the provision is associated with decreases in the likelihood of having given birth and abortion rates and an increase in the likelihood of using long-term hormonal contraceptives.

Keywords: Fertility; Affordable Care Act; Young adult provision; Health insurance; I12; I13; I18; J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00148-017-0676-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
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:spr:jopoec:v:31:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s00148-017-0676-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... tion/journal/148/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s00148-017-0676-6

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Population Economics is currently edited by K.F. Zimmermann

More articles in Journal of Population Economics from Springer, European Society for Population Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().