Impact of Changing Public Policy on the Family

公共政策变化对家庭的影响

• 批准号: 6888095
• 负责人: JONATHAN GRUBER
• 金额: $ 24.55万
• 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 2007-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6888095
• 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（申请人提供）：20世纪70年代初美国堕胎合法化代表了20世纪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（除了极少数情况下）变成了法律的（应要求），超过四分之一的怀孕以堕胎告终。 以前的研究表明，引入合法堕胎导致出生率立即下降，一些证据表明，它也改变了出生者的群体特征，至少在他们年轻时是这样。但是，要充分理解这一重要社会实验的结果，就需要进一步研究它对整个生命过程中的同龄人的影响以及这种影响背后的机制。 具体而言，我们将解决两个问题：（1）在堕胎法律的地方出生的儿童群体与在堕胎非法的地方出生的儿童群体有何不同？合法化后出生的群体的结果可能会有所不同，因为“意外”出生的孩子较少，或者因为家庭较小，增加了每个孩子的可用资源。 以前的分析表明，有重要的影响，合法化的出生队列的特点，年轻时，但一直很少有后续行动，以评估关键的长期影响队列质量。我们将直接研究合法化对队列结果的影响，如教育程度，劳动力市场的成功，家庭结构和监禁，以衡量对队列结果的整体影响。(2)堕胎合法化能教会我们什么关于家庭规模的数量/质量权衡以及“意图”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。我们将直接估计合法化可能影响队列结果的两个渠道中的每一个，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。 我们将利用2000年人口普查沿着以及以前人口普查的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年少数州堕胎合法化沿着随后在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。