Impact of Changing Public Policy on the Family

描述（由申请人提供）：20世纪70年代初美国堕胎合法化是20世纪美国社会政策最重要的变化之一。在十年的时间里，堕胎从全国范围内的非法行为（除非在极少数情况下）变成了应要求而合法，超过四分之一的怀孕以堕胎告终。先前的研究表明，堕胎合法化的引入导致出生率立即下降，一些证据表明，它还改变了出生者的群体特征，至少在他们年轻的时候是这样。但是，要充分理解这一重要社会实验的结果，还需要进一步研究它在整个生命历程中对人群的影响，以及这种影响背后的机制。具体来说，我们将解决两个问题：(1)在堕胎合法的地方出生的孩子与在堕胎非法的地方出生的孩子有什么不同？合法化后出生的人群的结果可能会有所不同，要么是因为“意外”出生的孩子减少了，要么是因为家庭规模变小了，每个孩子可用的资源增加了。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，但很少有后续研究来评估对队列质量的关键长期影响。我们将直接检查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)关于家庭规模的数量/质量权衡，以及“目的性”的长期影响，堕胎合法化能教会我们什么？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，令人信服地解决任何影响群体特征背后的机制。我们将直接估计合法化可能影响队列结果的两个渠道，为家庭规模和意向如何影响结果的关键问题提供新的和令人信服的证据。我们将使用2000年人口普查和以往人口普查的最新数据来解决这些问题。正如我们过去的工作一样，这一分析广泛依赖于1970年少数几个州早期堕胎合法化所产生的自然实验，以及1973年美国最高法院在罗伊诉韦德案（Roe v. Wade）中做出的堕胎合法化裁决。

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.