Abortion, Economic Hardship, and Crime

Erkmen Aslim, Wei Fu, Caitlin Myers, Erdal Tekin and Bingjin Xue

No 34245, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We study how abortion access affects economic hardship and crime. Using a database of abortion provider locations and operations in Texas from 2009–2019, we exploit variation in travel distance to the nearest facility created by clinic closures following the enforcement of Texas HB-2 in 2013. We confirm previous evidence that increased distance to the nearest abortion facility reduces abortions and increases births. We provide novel evidence that reduced access to abortion also leads to significant economic hardship, reflected in lower labor force participation, rising debt, widening income inequality, and heightened housing insecurity. This financial strain translates into higher rates of financially motivated crime, such as theft and burglary, with no significant effect on violent crime. These effects extend beyond directly affected individuals, reflecting intrahousehold spillovers. These findings suggest far-reaching consequences of restricted access to reproductive healthcare.

JEL-codes: I12 I18 J13 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-law
Note: CH EH
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w34245.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

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:nbr:nberwo:34245

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w34245
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

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 ().