Impact of Changing Public Policy on the Family

公共政策变化对家庭的影响

• 批准号: 6737548
• 负责人: JONATHAN GRUBER
• 金额: $ 46.54万
• 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/6737548
• 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）：1970年代初在美国堕胎的合法化是20世纪美国社会政策中最重要的变化之一。在十年的时间里，堕胎从全国范围内的非法堕胎开始，除非在极少数情况下，也可以根据要求进行合法，其中四分之一以上的怀孕以堕胎结束。 先前的研究表明，引入合法堕胎导致出生率立即下降，一些证据表明，至少在年轻的时候，它也改变了同队的特征。但是，对这项重要的社会实验的结果充分理解需要对其对整个生命过程中的人群的影响以及这种影响背后的机制进行进一步的研究。 具体来说，我们将解决两个问题：（1）出生的儿童在堕胎是合法的儿童中与堕胎是非法的那些堕胎的人有何不同？合法化后出生的人群的成果可能会有所不同，因为“意外”的孩子出生的孩子少，或者因为家庭较小，每个孩子可用的资源增加。 先前的分析表明，合法化对年轻时出生队列的特征有重要的影响，但是几乎没有跟进来评估对队列质量的重要长期影响。我们将直接研究合法化对诸如教育成果，劳动力市场成功，家庭结构和监禁等队列成果的影响，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关于家庭规模的数量/质量权衡以及“意图性”的长期影响？我们不仅可以评估合法化对儿童结果的“减少形式”的影响，而且还可以利用这种准经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。我们将直接估算两个渠道中的每个渠道中的每个渠道都会影响人群成果，从而提供有关家庭规模和预期性如何影响结果的关键问题的新​​的和令人信服的证据。 我们将使用2000年普查的新数据以及以前的人口普查来解决这些问题。与我们过去的工作一样，这种分析广泛依赖于1970年在少数州堕胎的早期合法化所产生的自然实验，以及随后在美国最高法院在Roev。Wade案中的最高法院裁决之后，1973年堕胎合法化。