More Power to the Pill: The Impact of Contraceptive Freedom on Women's Life Cycle Labor Supply

Abstract

The release of Enovid in 1960, the first birth control pill, afforded U. S. women unprecedented freedom to plan childbearing and their careers. This paper uses plausibly exogenous variation in state consent laws to evaluate the causal impact of the pill on the timing of first births and extent and intensity of women's labor-force participation. The results suggest that legal access to the pill before age 21 significantly reduced the likelihood of a first birth before age 22, increased the number of women in the paid labor force, and raised the number of annual hours worked.

Trends in Economic Homogamy: Changes in Assortative Mating or the Division of Labor in Marriage?

“…The deteriorating economic status of men and the rising costs of social reproduction (e.g., increasingly lengthy investments in children) increased the vulnerability of single-earner families to economic uncertainties relative to dual-earner families (Oppenheimer 1994). Fertility declines, in part facilitated by the advent of effective birth control technology (Bailey 2006; Goldin and Katz 2002), decreased the years spent rearing children and left more time for employment (Oppenheimer 1994). These changes have led many to observe that the specialization and trading model of marriage that characterized American families into the 1970s (Becker 1974) has shifted to one characterized by increased economic collaboration and flexibility about the breadwinner role (e.g., Cherlin 2004; Gerson 2010; Goldscheider et al 2015; Oppenheimer 1997).…”

Patriarchy, Power, and Pay: The Transformation of American Families, 1800–2015

“…Similarly, shifting attitudes helped eliminate legal barriers to contraception and abortion in the 1960s and early 1970s (May 2010). Women’s control of their own fertility led to a marked decline in unplanned pregnancies, which in turn contributed to delayed marriage and childbearing, increased educational attainment among women, and rising female labor force participation (Akerlof et al 1996; Bailey 2006; Goldin and Katz 2002; Myers 2012). Thus, attitudinal change enables institutional change, which in turn affects family behavior.…”

Fifty Years of Family Planning: New Evidence on the Long-Run Effects of Increasing Access to Contraception

“…For this group, access to contraception was limited by law in many states until the mid-1970s. Using variation in these laws across states (see Bailey and others 2011), a body of studies shows that early legal access to the Pill affected the timing of marriages (Goldin and Katz 2002) and births (Bailey 2006, 2009, Guldi 2008) and the incidence of premarital cohabitation (Christensen 2011) and had broad effects on women’s and men’s education, labor force attachment, and lifetime wages. Women and men were more likely to enroll in and complete college (Goldin and Katz 2002, Hock 2008, Bailey and others 2012) in states where access to contraceptives was easier.…”

“…Women and men were more likely to enroll in and complete college (Goldin and Katz 2002, Hock 2008, Bailey and others 2012) in states where access to contraceptives was easier. Women were more likely to work for pay (Bailey 2006), invest in on-the-job training (Bailey and others 2012), and pursue non-traditionally female professions (Goldin and Katz 2002, Bailey and others 2012). And as women aged, these investments paid off.…”