Abortion and Crime: A Review

Abstract

Ten years have passed since John Donohue and Steven Levitt initially proposed that legalized abortion played a major role in the dramatic decline in crime during the 1990s. Criminologists largely dismiss the association because simple plots of age-specific crime rates are inconsistent with a large cohort affect following the legalization of abortion. Economists, on the other hand, have corrected mistakes in the original analyses, added new data, offered alternative tests and tried to replicate the association in other countries. Donohue and Levitt have responded to each challenge with more data and additional regressions. Making sense of the dueling econometrics has proven difficult for even the most seasoned empiricists. In this paper I review the evidence. I argue that the most straightforward test given available data involves age-specific arrest and homicide rates regressed on lagged abortion rates in the 1970s or indicators of abortion legalization in 1970 and 1973 Ten years have passed since the Chicago Tribune published its front-page story on the relationship between legalized abortion and crime.2 In a then unpublished manuscript StevenLevitt and John Donohue III contended that the legalization of abortion in the 1970s could explain as much as 50 percent of the dramatic decline in crime in the 1990s. Almost two years later the manuscript was the lead article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. A flurry of press reports followed, but it was not until the publication of Steven Levitt's and Steven Dubner's phenomenally successful book, Freakonomics, that the association between legalized abortion and crime became well-known among non-academics. 3The widespread familiarity of the abortion and crime hypothesis derives from several factors. First, the hypothesis is exceedingly controversial. Individually, abortion and crime generate impassioned responses, but linking them proved incendiary, which heightened interest in the media. Second, the conceptual hypothesis is readily accessible and easily expressed without equations or jargon. The notion that fewer unwanted children result in fewer psychologically injured and crime-prone adults strikes many as common sense. Third, the evidence, as presented, is similarly transparent. 2 of legal abortions grew so rapidly that by 1980 there were over 1.5 million abortions as compared to 3.6 million births. Since abortion is more prevalent among poor, unmarried and teen mothers, its legalization decreased large numbers of births to families at greater risk of raising potential criminals. The result is a major decline in crime 15 to 25 years after Roe as these more "wanted" cohorts reached the peak crime ages.Among academics, however, the notion that legalized abortion had a major impact on crime has been met with greater skepticism. Criminologists describe the association as novel or interesting but are dismissive. They make the first-order observation that the timing between changes in age-specific crime rates and exposure to legalized abortion is inconsistent ...

The impact of the legalisation of abortion on birth outcomes in Uruguay

“…The bulk of the empirical evidence on the effects of abortion on fertility outcomes originates from the United States (Ananat, Gruber, & Levine, ; Ananat et al, ; Angrist & Evans, ; Bitler & Zavodny, ; Charles & Stephens, ; Cook, Parnell, Moore, & Pagnini, ; Donohue III & Levitt, , ; Gruber, Philip, & Staiger, ; Guldi, ; Joyce, , , , ; Levine, Staiger, Kane, & Zimmerman, ; Rotz, ; Sorenson, Wiebe, & Berk, ). Furthermore, several studies study the consequences of changes in the abortion regime in Romania (Mitrut & Wolff, ; Pop‐Eleches, , ), with one piece of comparative research focused on Eastern European countries (Levine & Staiger, ) and another further study centred on Nepal (Valente, ).…”

Explaining the crime drop: contributions to declining crime rates from youth cohorts since 2005

“…However, such a finding does not explain the observed pre-2007 reductions in youth crime. Similar explanations such as the 'abortion-crime' link (see [68]) or the decline of the crack epidemic [69], have also failed to account for longer-term trends or be applicable to different countries that experienced similar phenomenon [55,70]. It can be argued that the application of diversionary practices that seek to minimise the contact of young people with the potentially criminalising effects of the youth criminal justice system can result in reduced youth crime [30,71].…”

HOW IMPORTANT WAS THE PILL TO WOMEN'S ECONOMIC WELL‐BEING? IF ROE V. WADE WERE OVERTURNED, HOW MIGHT SOCIETY CHANGE?

“…The more effectively researchers control for family disadvantages, the less robust an association between births conceived as unintended pregnancies and child health and development (Joyce, Kaestner, & Korenman, ). The association between abortion and crime is largely eliminated when within‐state as opposed to cross‐state comparison groups are used (Foote & Goetz, ; Joyce, ). Effects of the marginal child rely on parametric controls to solve the classic problem of identifying cohort effects amid potentially strong age and period effects.…”

“…See the report The Best Intentions: Unintended Pregnancy and the Well‐Being of Children and Families. See also Joyce () for a review of the abortion and crime literature.…”