The Demand for Abortion by Unmarried Teenagers

Abstract

A demand model was developed and applied to a nationally representative sample of unmarried, pregnant teenagers drawn from the National Longitudinal Surveys in order to identify the economic determinants of abortion Measures of the opportunity costs of pregnancy were found to play a major role in the individual's decision to give birth or to abort Economic variables in the analysis included predicted wages, local area unemployment rates, other family income, poverty status, and school enrollment status Other factors found to be significant were age, ethnicity, and religiosity In general, young women in favorable economic circumstances were substantially more likely than others to abort a pregnancy

An economic analysis of pregnancy resolution in Virginia: specific as to race and residence

“…The empirical results highly conform with the expectations of our analytical framework (Tables 4 and 5). 6 Consistent with the findings of previous empirical and theoretical studies (e.g., Becker and Lewis 1973;Fuchs 1983;Easterlin and Crimmins 1985;Leibowitz et al 1986;Montgomery 1987;Medoff 1988;Grossman and Joyce 1990;King et al 1992), the probability of giving birth declines significantly with higher educational attainment in all cohorts. According to most opinion, this pattern is due to the tendency of education to reduce the benefits of children to parents; to raise the opportunity costs of children; and to increase parents' demand for child quality.…”

“…The abortion option, however, also reduces the parental utility gained from having an additional child. In addition, it is certain that other costs will be involved with the option of abortion such as possible psychic hardships, direct abortion outlay, own time inputs, transportation costs, and searching costs for the information on abortion services (Medoff 1988;King et al 1992: Lewin 1992. 2…”

“…This is accomplished by incorporating two countyspecific variables from the 1984 ARF data base: the percentage of population below county-specific poverty line and medium family income level. Neither variable, however, was found to have a statistically significant impact on the birth selection decisions by the adult parents (Medoff 1988;Grossman and Joyce 1990;King et al 1992). 12…”

“…Leibowitz et al (1986) estimated an economic model of pregnancy resolution by never-married, neverbefore-pregnant teenagers, but the study was confined to a sample of 386 pregnant girls aged to 13 to 19 in Ventura County, California during 1972California during -1974. Using the data contained in the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY), King et al (1992) applied a demand analysis for abortion to a sample of 593 never-married women aged 16 to 19 who reported a first pregnancy between 1979 and 1984 surveys. While their study provides some very interesting insights, particularly the effects of income variables and religious status, into the pregnancy resolution by adolescents, it is also limited by the scope of its sample.…”

Exploring the Simultaneity in Public Assistance and Abortion

“…The devoutness or religiosity of PS affects pregnancy termination [15] via regret parameter α. If religion is more important in period 2 than it is in period 1, PS in the more religious period will be more reluctant to choose pregnancy termination  2 1 .…”