Subsidized Contraception, Fertility, and Sexual Behavior

Melissa Kearney and Phillip Levine

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2009, vol. 91, issue 1, 137-151

Abstract: We examine the impact of recent state-level Medicaid policy changes that expanded eligibility for family planning services to higher-income women and to Medicaid clients whose benefits would expire otherwise. We show that the income-based policy change reduced overall births to non-teens by about 2% and to teens by over 4%; estimates suggest a decline of 9% among newly eligible women. The reduction in fertility appears to have been accomplished via greater use of contraception. Our calculations indicate that allowing higher-income women to receive federally funded family planning cost on the order of $6,800 for each averted birth. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Date: 2009
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Working Paper: Subsidized Contraception, Fertility, and Sexual Behavior (2007)
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