The Consequences of Abortion Funding Bans
Do restrictions on public funding create unintended reliance on social assistance? In this paper, we study the 1976 Hyde Amendment, which barred federal funding for abortion. Using county-level data and an event-study design, we show that reduced federal funding for abortion increased fertility among young women by 2%. These effects were concentrated among non-white women, who subsequently experienced greater welfare participation in states with larger abortion funding declines. The consequences extend into the next generation: non-white girls born after Hyde were more likely to rely on public assistance in adulthood. Abortion funding restrictions reinforce long-run economic inequality across generations.
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Copy CitationLauren Hoehn-Velasco, Nikita Dhingra, and Mayra Pineda-Torres, "The Consequences of Abortion Funding Bans," NBER Working Paper 34548 (2025), https://doi.org/10.3386/w34548.Download Citation
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