Religious Barriers to Birth Control Access

Olivier Marie and Esmée Zwiers

No 12157, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: This paper presents new causal evidence on the “power” of oral contraceptives in shaping women’s lives, leveraging the 1970 liberalization of the Pill for minors in the Netherlands and demand- and supply-side religious preferences that affected Pill take-up. We analyze administrative data to demonstrate that, after Pill liberalization, minors from less conservative areas were more likely to delay fertility/marriage and to accumulate human capital in the long run. We then show how these large effects were eliminated for women facing a higher share of gatekeepers – general practitioners and pharmacists – who were opposed to providing the Pill on religious grounds.

Keywords: birth control; religion; fertility; marriage; human capital; the Netherlands (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 J12 J13 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-his
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12157

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