TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kearney,Melissa S.
AU  - Levine,Phillip B.
TI  - Subsidized Contraception, Fertility, and Sexual Behavior
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13045
PY  - 2007
Y2  - April 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13045
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13045.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Melissa Schettini Kearney
Department of Economics
University of Maryland
3105  Tydings Hall
College Park, MD 20742
Tel: 301/405-6202
E-Mail: kearney@econ.umd.edu

Phillip B. Levine
Department of Economics
Wellesley College
106 Central Street
Wellesley, MA 02481
Tel: 781/283-2162
Fax: 781/283-2177
E-Mail: plevine@wellesley.edu
AB  - This paper examines the impact of recent state-level Medicaid policy changes that expanded eligibility for family planning services to higher income women and to Medicaid clients whose benefits would expire otherwise.  We begin by establishing that the income-based policy change led to a substantial increase in the number of program recipients.  We then examine Vital Statistics birth data from 1990 to 2003 and determine that it also reduced overall births to non-teens by about two percent and to teens by over four percent.  Our estimates suggest a nearly nine percent reduction in births to women age 20-44 made eligible by the policy change.  We supplement our state-level analysis with an investigation of individual-level data from the 1988, 1995, and 2002 National Surveys of Family Growth (NSFG) to examine the impact of these policies on sexual behavior and contraceptive use. Evidence from this analysis suggests that the reduction in fertility associated with raising income thresholds for eligibility was accomplished via greater use of contraception. Our calculations indicate that allowing higher income women to receive federally-funded family planning cost on the order of $6,800 for each averted birth.
ER  -