Does Parental Consent for Birth Control Affect Underage Pregnancy Rates? The Case of Texas

Sourafel Girma and David Paton

Demography, 2013, vol. 50, issue 6, 2105-2128

Abstract: Previous work based on conjectural responses of minors predicted that the 2003 Texas requirement for parental consent for state-funded birth control to minors would lead to a large increase in underage pregnancies. We use state- and county-level data to test this prediction. The latter allow us to compare the impact of parental consent in counties with and without state-funded family planning clinics. We control for characteristics systematically correlated with the presence of state-funded clinics by combining difference-in-difference estimation with propensity score–weighted regressions. The evidence suggests that the parental consent mandate led to a large decrease in attendance at family planning clinics among teens but did not lead to an increase in underage pregnancies. Copyright Population Association of America 2013

Keywords: Propensity score weights; Parental consent; Birth control; Teen pregnancy; Abortion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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DOI: 10.1007/s13524-013-0225-1

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