More Women Missing, Fewer Girls Dying: The Impact of Abortion on Sex Ratios at Birth and Excess Female Mortality in Taiwan

Ming-Jen Lin, Nancy Qian and Jin-Tan Liu
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: 明仁 林

No 14541, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper presents novel empirical evidence on the impact of access to abortion on sex ratios at birth (SRB), excess female mortality (EFM) and fertility in Taiwan. For identification, we exploit plausibly exogenous variation in the availability of sex-selective abortion caused by the legalization of abortion. Our results show that the legalization of abortion accounts for almost all of the observed increase in SRB during the 1980s and decreased EFM by approximately 20%. Approximately ten more female infants survived for every one hundred that were aborted. Interestingly, we find that while abortion reduced overall fertility, it increased fertility for older mothers.

JEL-codes: J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-hea and nep-lab
Note: EH
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Working Paper: More Women Missing, Fewer Girls Dying: The Impact of Abortion on Sex Ratios at Birth and Excess Female Mortality in Taiwan (2008)
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