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Reproductive Technology and the Child Care Sector: How Access to Oral Contraception and Abortion Shaped Workforce Composition and Quality

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  • Herbst, Chris M.

    (Arizona State University)

  • Tekin, Erdal

    (American University)

Abstract

The composition and quality of the child care workforce may be uniquely sensitive to changes in the complementarities between home production and market work. This paper examines whether the expansion of oral contraceptives and abortion access throughout the 1960's and 1970's influenced the composition, quality, and wages of the child care workforce. Leveraging state-by-birth cohort variation in access to these reproductive technologies, we find that they significantly altered the educational profile of child care workers—increasing the proportion of less-educated women in the sector while reducing the share of highly-educated workers. This shift led to a decline in average education levels and wages within the child care workforce. Furthermore, access to the pill and abortion influenced child care employment differently across settings, with center-based providers losing more high-skilled workers to alternatives with better career opportunities, and home-based and private household providers absorbing more low-skilled women, for whom child care may have remained a viable employment destination. Overall, our findings indicate that increased reproductive autonomy, while expanding women's access to higher-skilled and -paying professions, also resulted in a redistribution of skilled labor away from child care, which may have implications for service quality, child development, and parental employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Herbst, Chris M. & Tekin, Erdal, 2025. "Reproductive Technology and the Child Care Sector: How Access to Oral Contraception and Abortion Shaped Workforce Composition and Quality," IZA Discussion Papers 17725, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17725
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Herbst, Chris M. & Tekin, Erdal, 2010. "Child care subsidies and child development," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 618-638, August.
    2. Erdal Tekin, 2007. "Childcare Subsidies, Wages, and Employment of Single Mothers," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(2).
    3. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2002. "The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women's Career and Marriage Decisions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 730-770, August.
    4. Chris M. Herbst & Erdal Tekin, 2016. "The Impact of Child‐Care Subsidies on Child Development: Evidence from Geographic Variation in the Distance to Social Service Agencies," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(1), pages 94-116, January.
    5. Elizabeth Oltmans Ananat & Daniel M. Hungerman, 2012. "The Power of the Pill for the Next Generation: Oral Contraception's Effects on Fertility, Abortion, and Maternal and Child Characteristics," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 37-51, February.
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    10. Herbst, Chris M., 2024. "The Declining Relative Quality of the Child Care Workforce," IZA Discussion Papers 17351, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Steingrimsdottir, Herdis, 2020. "The decreased popularity of the teaching sector in the 1970s," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
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    17. Jonathan Borowsky & Jessica H. Brown & Elizabeth E. Davis & Chloe Gibbs & Chris M. Herbst & Aaron Sojourner & Erdal Tekin & Matthew J. Wiswall, 2022. "An Equilibrium Model of the Impact of Increased Public Investment in Early Childhood Education," NBER Working Papers 30140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    1. Hamid Noghanibehambari & David Slusky & Hoa Vu, 2025. "From Access to Wellness: Early Life Exposure to Abortion Legalization and the Next Generation’s Health," NBER Working Papers 33571, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    abortion; child care; pill; contraceptive; reproductive technology;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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