There is longstanding debate in population policy about the relationship between modern contraception and abortion. Although theory predicts that they should be substitutes, the existing body of empirical evidence is difficult to interpret. What is required is a large‐scale intervention that...

The rate of fertility decline has been slow in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using the Demographic and Health Surveys for 21 SSA countries between 1990 and 2014, we examine the within-country fertility patterns by wealth, applying the Bongaarts (2015) proximate determinants model. We find that...

Large differences in fertility between women with high and low levels of education suggest that schooling may have a direct impact on knowledge and use of contraception. We investigate this issue using information on women in Mexico. In order to identify the causal effect of schooling, we...

We analyze the tradeoff between child quantity and quality in developing countries by estimating the effect of family size on child education in urban Philippines. To isolate exogenous changes in family size, we exploit a policy shock: in the late 1990s, the mayor of Manila enacted a municipal...

Recent research postulating that the diffusion of confidential access to the birth control pill to young women in the United States contributed to the dramatic social changes of the late 1960s and 1970s has not adequately accounted for the largely contemporaneous diffusion of access to abortion....

This paper presents new evidence on the role of subsidized contraceptives in influencing fertility behavior. It draws on two types of disruptions that affected the public supply of free contraceptives in the Philippines: a sharp reduction induced by the phase out of contraceptive donations to...

Dieses Papier untersucht mit Paneldaten des Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), inwieweit die Nutzung von Fernsehgeräten das Fertilitäts- bzw. Verhüttungsverhalten von Frauen im ländlichen Indonesien beeinflusst. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung zeigen einen positiven und signifikanten...

Goldin and Katz [2002], in an influential paper, argued that giving unmarried minors access to the contraceptive Pill was instrumental for women's professional advancement, because such access allowed marriage to be postponed. However, by 1960, married women could get the Pill and thence it is...

This paper provides a general formulation of the regression discontinuity (RD) design and applies this method to analyse the effects of the 1995 UK pill scare. We show that in the five months following a health warning on the "third generation" pill, conception rates rose by more than 7%,...

This study examines the relationship between bargaining power and the use of contraceptives in the household. Using data from rural Bangladesh in 1998-1999 it investigates whether women in a relatively strong bargaining position at the time of marriage continue to remain in a strong position...

This paper investigates the consequences of a series of Swedish policy changes beginning in 1989 where different regions started subsidizing the birth control pill. The reforms were significant and applied to all types of oral contraceptives. My identification strategy takes advantage of the...

A society is characterized by the common attitudes and behavior of its members. Such behavior reflects purposive decision making by individuals, given the environment they live in. Thus, as technology changes, so might social norms. There were big changes in social norms during the 20th century,...