TY - JOUR AU - Levine,Phillip B. AU - Staiger,Douglas AU - Kane,Thomas J. AU - Zimmerman,David J. TI - Roe v. Wade and American Fertility JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 5615 PY - 1996 Y2 - June 1996 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5615 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5615.pdf N1 - Author contact info: 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 Douglas O. Staiger Dartmouth College Department of Economics HB6106, 301 Rockefeller Hall Hanover, NH 03755-3514 Tel: 603/646-2979 Fax: 603/646-2122 E-Mail: douglas.staiger@dartmouth.edu Thomas J. Kane Harvard Graduate School of Education Center for Education Policy Research 50 Church St., 4th Floor Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617/496-4359 E-Mail: kaneto@gse.harvard.edu David Zimmerman Department of Economics Williams College South Academic Building 24 Hopkins Hall Drive Williamstown, MA 01267 Tel: 413/597-2192 Fax: 413/597-4045 E-Mail: David.J.Zimmerman@williams.edu M2 - featured in NBER digest on 1996-10-01 AB - We consider the effect of abortion legalization on births in the United States. A simple theoretical model demonstrates that the impact of abortion legalization on the birth rate is ambiguous, because both pregnancy and abortion decisions could be affected. We use variation in the timing of legalization across states in the early 1970's to estimate the effect of abortion on birth rates. Our findings indicate that states legalizing abortion experienced a 5% decline in births relative to other states. The decline among teens, women over 35, and nonwhite women was even greater: 13%, 8%, and 12% respectively. Out-of-wedlock births declined by twice as much as births in wedlock. If legalization in some states affected birth rates in neighboring states (through travel to obtain an abortion), comparing births between states will underestimate the actual reduction. Using more distant comparison states increases the estimated impact of abortion legalization on birth rates to about 8%. Applying this estimate to the current level of births, a complete recriminalization of abortion would result in 320,000 additional births per year. ER -