Drivers of Racial Differences in C-Sections

Adriana Corredor-Waldron, Janet Currie and Molly Schnell
Additional contact information
Adriana Corredor-Waldron: North Carolina State
Janet Currie: Yale and NBER
Molly Schnell: Northwestern and NBER

No 2489, Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University

Abstract: Black mothers with a trial of labor are 25 percent more likely to deliver by C-section than non-Hispanic White mothers. The gap is largest among mothers with the lowest risk and is reduced by only one-fifth when controlling for observed medical risk factors, sociodemographic characteristics, hospital, and physician or medical practice group. Remarkably, the gap disappears when performing a C-section is more costly due to a concurrent pre-labor C-section limiting surgical resources. This finding is consistent with provider discretion rather than differences in unobserved medical risk accounting for persistent racial disparities in delivery method. The additional intrapartum C-sections that occur among low-risk women when hospitals are unconstrained negatively impact infant health.

Pages: 90 pages
Date: 2025-12-29
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2026-01/d2489.pdf (application/pdf)

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:cwl:cwldpp:2489

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Cowles Foundation, Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA
The price is None.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Brittany Ladd ().