The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime: Comment<sup>*</sup>

Foote, Christopher L.; Goetz, Christopher F.

doi:10.1162/qjec.2008.123.1.407

Cited by 129 publications

(123 citation statements)

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“…I refer the interested reader to the large literature in economics on this topic. See, for instance, Levine and others (1999), Gruber, Levine, and Staiger (1999), Donahue and Levitt (2001), Charles and Stephens (2006), Foote and Goetz (2008), and Ananat and others (2009). 2 Today the situation is reversed, with Democrats slightly more favorable.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Bailey

2014

SSRN Journal

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This paper assembles new evidence on some of the longer-term consequences of U.S. family planning policies, defined in this paper as those increasing legal or financial access to modern contraceptives. The analysis leverages two large policy changes that occurred during the 1960s and 1970s: first, the interaction of the birth control pill's introduction with Comstock-era restrictions on the sale of contraceptives and the repeal of these laws after Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965; and second, the expansion of federal funding for local family planning programs from 1964 to 1973. Building on previous research that demonstrates both policies' effects on fertility rates, I find suggestive evidence that individuals' access to contraceptives increased their children's college completion, labor force participation, wages, and family incomes decades later.Family planning policies, defined in this paper as those increasing legal or financial access to modern contraceptives and related education and medical services, have grown increasingly controversial over the last decade. 1 In 2010 and 2011, congressional Republicans supported proposals to cut family planning funding through Title X of the Public Health Service Act, which funds U.S. family planning clinics serving over 4 million women (Cohen 2011). This represents a significant departure from the bipartisan support enjoyed by these programs over the last 40 years. The first legislation authorizing a national family planning program passed in 1970 with the strong support of Republican President Richard Nixon. In fact, public opinion surveys indicate that support for family planning programs was stronger at that time among Republicans than among Democrats. 2 Much of the current debate surrounding family planning focuses on women's reproductive rights and health. In the 1960s, however, proponents of these programs often emphasized their links to the economy. Both President Lyndon Johnson and President Nixon stressed how family planning programs would promote the opportunities of children and families and thus drive economic growth. This reasoning is consistent with a long theoretical tradition in economics, including standard formulations of the quantity-quality models of investments in children (Becker and Lewis 1973, Willis 1973, Hotz, Klerman, and Willis 1997 Contact Information: Department of Economics, University of Michigan, 611 Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; baileymj@umich.edu. 1 In this paper I do not consider the effects of policies regarding abortion. I refer the interested reader to the large literature in economics on this topic. See, for instance, Levine and others (1999), Gruber, Levine, and Staiger (1999), Donahue and Levitt (2001), Charles and Stephens (2006), Foote and Goetz (2008), and Ananat and others (2009). 2 Today the situation is reversed, with Democrats slightly more favorable. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptBrookings Pap Econ Act. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2014 October 20. Published in final edited form as:Bro...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Bailey

2014

SSRN Journal

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“…23 Joyce (2004Joyce ( , 2009), Lott and Whitley (2007) and Foote and Goetz (2008) each have replicated DL findings and then tested the sensitivity of the estimates to modifications. The debate often reduces to dueling regressions, which can be numbing to observers not enmeshed in the issues.…”

Section: Responses To the Donohue And Levitt Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Donohue and Levitt (2001) never include the age structure in the model. However, in response to Foote and Goetz (2008) Donohue and Levitt (2008) regress the number of age-specific crimes and arrests (in logs) on the abortion rate. They argue that the coefficient on the abortion rate in these regressions captures both the cohort size effect as well as selection effects.…”

Section: Conceptual Framework and Supporting Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The difference in the abortion coefficient between these two regressions is the cohort size effect. Critics argue that a specification of log arrests on the abortion rates lacks justification and leads to spurious results (Foote and Goetz 2008;Joyce 2009 There is a large difference in abortion rates between pre-Roe and Roe states that persists well after 1973 with no corresponding difference in fertility rates. One would expect higher abortion rates to be associated with lower fertility rates if, in fact, abortion reduced the rate of unwanted childbearing.…”

Section: Conceptual Framework and Supporting Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, Charles and Stephens only have a single age group. They can't exploit age differences to estimate the triple difference strategy of Joyce (2004Joyce ( , 2009 or the inclusion of state-year effects as used by Donohue and Levitt (2008) and Foote and Goetz (2008 Although the coefficient on the abortion rate is negative, the t-ratio is less than one. Hotz, McElroy and Sanders (2005) use spontaneous abortion among teens to generate the counterfactual for teens that give birth.…”

Section: Conceptual Framework and Supporting Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Abortion and Crime: A Review

Joyce¹

2009

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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 ...

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The Effect of Sex Ratios on Suicide

Kuroki

2013

Health Econ.

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Whereas sex ratios are likely to affect the likelihood of marriage, how sex ratios affect health and survival is underexplored. This study uses suicide as a measure of mental health and examines how suicides are affected by sex ratios. As women tend to marry men older than themselves, shrinking populations will lead to higher sex ratios (i.e., higher proportions of men) in the marriage market. Using data from Japan, I find that high sex ratios, both early-life and current, are correlated with higher male suicide rates, whereas female suicide rates are generally not affected. The results of this study have important implications for public health in countries where imbalanced sex ratios are a concern.

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The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime: Comment^*

Cited by 129 publications

References 7 publications

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

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

Abortion and Crime: A Review

The Effect of Sex Ratios on Suicide

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The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime: Comment*

Cited by 129 publications

References 7 publications

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

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

Abortion and Crime: A Review

The Effect of Sex Ratios on Suicide

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime: Comment^*