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Effects of lower ages of majority on oral contraceptive use: Evidence on the validity of The Power of the Pill

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  • Cragun, Randy

Abstract

With the Australian Family Project and 1970 National Fertility Survey, this paper uses between-states variation in the timing of youth consent laws in Australia and the US in the 1960s and 1970s to show that women in Australia who had never used the pill were 2 percentage points more likely to start at age 19 under an age of majority of 18 instead of 21 (from a base rate around 2%). Women living under liberalized youth consent and legal access to the pill in the US were 10 percentage points more likely to start the pill at age 20.

Suggested Citation

  • Cragun, Randy, 2019. "Effects of lower ages of majority on oral contraceptive use: Evidence on the validity of The Power of the Pill," MPRA Paper 100871, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 03 Jun 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:100871
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    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/100871/1/MPRA_paper_100871.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. 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.
    2. Heinrich Hock, 2007. "The Pill and the College Attainment of American Women and Men," Working Papers wp2007_10_01, Department of Economics, Florida State University.
    3. Simon Ville & Peter Siminski, 2011. "A Fair And Equitable Method Of Recruitment? Conscription By Ballot Into The Australian Army During The Vietnam War," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 51(3), pages 277-296, November.
    4. Martha J. Bailey & Melanie Guldi & Brad J. Hershbein, 2013. "Further Evidence On The Internal Validity Of The Early Legal Access Research Design," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(4), pages 899-904, September.
    5. Stephanie P. Browne & Sara LaLumia, 2014. "The Effects of Contraception on Female Poverty," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(3), pages 602-622, June.
    6. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    7. Martha J. Bailey, 2013. "Fifty Years of Family Planning: New Evidence on the Long-Run Effects of Increasing Access to Contraception," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 44(1 (Spring), pages 341-409.
    8. Steingrimsdottir, Herdis, 2016. "Reproductive rights and the career plans of U.S. college freshmen," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 29-41.
    9. Bruno Ferman & Cristine Pinto, 2019. "Inference in Differences-in-Differences with Few Treated Groups and Heteroskedasticity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(3), pages 452-467, July.
    10. Martha J. Bailey, 2006. "More Power to the Pill: The Impact of Contraceptive Freedom on Women's Life Cycle Labor Supply," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(1), pages 289-320.
    11. Cragun, Randy & Chatterjee, Ishita, 2020. "Age of Majority and Women’s Early Human Capital Accumulation in Australia," MPRA Paper 100874, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 25 May 2020.
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    Cited by:

    1. Cragun, Randy & Chatterjee, Ishita, 2020. "Age of Majority and Women’s Early Human Capital Accumulation in Australia," MPRA Paper 100874, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 25 May 2020.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    the pill; contraception; power of the pill; age of majority; early legal access;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

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