Impact of Changing Public Policy on the Family

公共政策变化对家庭的影响

• 批准号: 6601711
• 负责人: JONATHAN GRUBER
• 金额: $ 33.68万
• 依托单位: NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-04-15 至 2006-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6601711
• 关键词: academic achievement; behavioral /social science research tag; clinical research; correctional institutions; epidemiology; family structure /dynamics; health care personnel; health care policy; health care service availability; health economics; health related legal; human data; induced abortion; oral contraceptives; outcomes research; socioeconomics; statistics /biometry

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The legalization of abortion in the United States in the early 1970s represents one of the most important changes in American social policy in the 20th century. In the span of a decade, abortion went from being illegal nationwide except in rare instances to being legal upon request, with over one quarter of all pregnancies ending in abortion. Previous research indicates that the introduction of legalized abortion led to an immediate decline in birth rates and some evidence indicates it also altered cohort characteristics among those born, at least while they are young. But a full understanding of the outcome of this important social experiment requires additional examination of its impact on cohorts throughout the life course and the mechanism behind such impacts. Specifically, we will address two questions: (1) How do cohorts of children born where abortion is legal differ from those born where abortion is illegal? The outcomes of cohorts born after legalization may differ either because there are fewer "unintended" children born, or because families are smaller, increasing resources available to each child. Previous analysis suggests that there were important impacts of legalization on the characteristics of birth cohorts when young, but there has been little follow up to assess the critical long run implications for cohort quality. We will directly examine the impact of legalization on cohort outcomes such as educational attainment, labor market success, family structure, and incarceration to measure the overall impact on cohort outcomes. (2) What can the legalization of abortion teach us about quantity/quality trade-offs in family size and about the long run impacts of "intendedness?" Not only can we assess the "reduced form" impact of legalization on child outcomes, we can also use the nature of this quasi-experiment to convincingly address the mechanism behind any impact on cohort characteristics. We will estimate directly each of the two channels through which legalization could affect cohort outcomes, providing new and convincing evidence on the critical questions of how family size and intendedness affects outcomes. We will use newly available data from the 2000 Census along with previous Censuses to address these questions. As in our past work, this analysis relies extensively on the natural experiment generated by the early legalization of abortion in a handful of states in 1970 along with the subsequent legalization of abortion in 1973 following the United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade.

描述(由申请人提供)：20世纪70年代初美国堕胎合法化代表着20世纪美国社会政策最重要的变化之一。在十年的时间里，堕胎在全国范围内从非法转变为合法，除非在极少数情况下才是合法的，超过四分之一的怀孕以堕胎告终。先前的研究表明，堕胎合法化的引入立即导致出生率下降，一些证据表明，这也改变了出生的人的队列特征，至少在他们年轻的时候是这样。但是，要充分理解这一重要的社会实验的结果，就需要对其在整个生命过程中对队列的影响以及这些影响背后的机制进行额外的审查。具体地说，我们将解决两个问题：(1)出生在堕胎合法地区的儿童与出生在堕胎非法地区的儿童有何不同？合法化后出生的群体的结果可能不同，要么是因为出生的“意外”儿童更少，要么是因为家庭规模更小，每个孩子可用的资源越来越多。先前的分析表明，合法化对年轻时出生队列的特征有重要影响，但几乎没有后续行动来评估对队列质量的关键长期影响。我们将直接考察合法化对队列结果的影响，如教育程度、劳动力市场成功、家庭结构和监禁，以衡量对队列结果的总体影响。(2)堕胎合法化可以教会我们什么关于家庭规模的数量/质量的权衡，以及“意向性”的长期影响？我们不仅可以评估合法化对儿童结果的“简化形式”影响，我们还可以利用这种准实验的性质来令人信服地解决对队列特征的任何影响背后的机制。我们将直接评估合法化可能影响队列结果的两个渠道，为家庭规模和意愿如何影响结果这一关键问题提供新的令人信服的证据。我们将使用2000年人口普查的最新数据和以前的人口普查数据来回答这些问题。与我们过去的工作一样，这一分析广泛依赖于1970年少数几个州的堕胎早期合法化以及随后的1973年美国最高法院对罗伊诉韦德案的裁决之后堕胎合法化所产生的自然实验。