TY  - JOUR
AU  - Angrist,Joshua D.
AU  - Evans,William N.
TI  - Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of the 1970 State Abortion      Reforms
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5406
PY  - 1996
Y2  - January 1996
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5406
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5406.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Joshua Angrist
Department of Economics
MIT, E52-353
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA  02142-1347
Tel: 617/253-8909
Fax: 617/253-1330
E-Mail: angrist@mit.edu

William N. Evans
Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Economics
Department of Economics and Econometrics
447 Flanner Hall
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
Tel: 574-631-7039
E-Mail: wevans1@nd.edu
AB  - This study uses the 1970 state abortion reforms to estimate the effect of teen and out-of-wedlock childbearing on the schooling and labor market outcomes of mothers observed in 1980 and 1990 Census microdata.  Reduced-form estimates suggest that state abortion reforms had a negative impact on teen marriage, teen fertility, and teen out- of-wedlock childbearing.  The teen marriage effects are largest and most precisely estimated for white women while the teen fertility and out-of-wedlock childbearing effects are largest and most precisely estimated for black women.  The relatively modest fertility and marriage consequences of abortion reform for white women do not appear to have changed schooling or labor market outcomes.  In contrast, black women who were exposed to abortion reforms experienced large reductions in teen fertility and teen out-of-wedlock fertility that appear to have led to increased schooling and employment rates. Instrumental variables estimates of the effects of teen and out-of- wedlock childbearing on the schooling and employment status of black women, using measures of exposure to abortion reform as instruments, are marginally significant and larger than the corresponding OLS estimates.
ER  -