Effects of Infertility Insurance Mandates on Fertility

Lucie Schmidt

No 2005-07, Department of Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics, Williams College

Abstract: Infertility currently affects over 6 million individuals in the United States. While most health insurance plans nationwide do not cover infertility diagnoses or treatments, to date fifteen states have enacted some form of infertility insurance mandate. In this paper, I use data from the Vital Statistics Detail Natality Data and Census population estimates to examine whether these statelevel mandates were successful in increasing fertility rates. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I exploit variation in the enactment of mandates both across states and over time, and identify control groups that should not have been affected by infertility coverage. My results suggest that the mandates significantly increase first birth rates for women over 35, and these results are robust to a number of specification tests.

Keywords: infertility; impaired fecundity; insurance mandates; fertility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I3 J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2005-08
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Journal of Health Economics, May 2007, v. 26, iss. 3, pp. 431-46.

Downloads: (external link)
https://web.williams.edu/Economics/wp/schmidtinfertility.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Effects of infertility insurance mandates on fertility (2007)
Working Paper: Effects of Infertility Insurance Mandates on Fertility (2005)
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:wil:wileco:2005-07

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Department of Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics, Williams College Williamstown, MA 01267. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Greg Phelan ().