Proliferation security
Tal Gross, Jeanne Lafortune & Corinne Low
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, forthcoming
Abstract:
Emergency contraception (EC) can prevent pregnancy after sex, but only if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. Over the past 15 years, access to EC has been expanded at both the state and federal level. This paper studies the impact of those policies. We find that expanded access to EC has had no statistically significant effect on birth or abortion rates. Expansions of access, however, have changed the venue in which the drug is obtained, shifting its provision from hospital emergency departments to pharmacies. We find evidence that this shift may have led to a decrease in reports of sexual assault.
----------------------
Who Seeks Abortions at or After 20 Weeks?
Diana Greene Foster & Katrina Kimport
Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, forthcoming
Context: Recent years have seen the introduction of state bills seeking to ban abortions after 20 weeks, but little empirical data exist on who is affected when such bans become law.
Methods: As part of a larger study, 272 women who received an abortion at or after 20 weeks’ gestation and 169 who received first-trimester abortions at 16 facilities across the country in 2008–2010 were interviewed one week after the procedure. Mixed effect logistic regression analyses were used to determine the characteristics associated with later abortion (i.e., at 20 weeks or later). Causes of delay in obtaining abortion were assessed in open- and closed-ended questions; profiles of women who received later abortions were identified through factor analysis.
Results: Women aged 20–24 were more likely than those aged 25–34 to have a later abortion (odds ratio, 2.7), and women who discovered their pregnancy before eight weeks’ gestation were less likely than others to do so (0.1). Later abortion recipients experienced logistical delays (e.g., difficulty finding a provider and raising funds for the procedure and travel costs), which compounded other delays in receiving care. Most women seeking later abortion fit at least one of five profiles: They were raising children alone, were depressed or using illicit substances, were in conflict with a male partner or experiencing domestic violence, had trouble deciding and then had access problems, or were young and nulliparous.
Conclusion: Bans on abortion after 20 weeks will disproportionately affect young women and women with limited financial resources.
----------------------
Martha Bailey, Melanie Guldi & Brad Hershbein
NBER Working Paper, October 2013
Abstract:
Dramatic fertility swings over the last 100 years have been the subject of large literatures in demography and economics. Recent research has claimed that the post-1960 fertility decline is exceptional enough to constitute a “Second Demographic Transition.” The empirical case for a Second Demographic Transition, however, rests largely on comparisons of the post-1960 period with the baby boom era, which was itself exceptional in many ways. Our analysis of the U.S. instead compares the fertility decline in the 1960s and 1970s to the earlier twentieth century fertility decline, especially the 1920s and 1930s. Our findings affirm that both periods experienced similar declines in fertility rates and that the affected cohorts averaged the same number of children born over their lifetimes. In contrast to conventional wisdom, the mean age of household formation (by marriage or non-marital cohabitation) and first birth are almost identical for women reaching childbearing age in the 1920s and 1930s and today. Three features, however, distinguish the post-1960 period: (1) the convergence in the distribution of completed childbearing around a two-child mode and a decrease in childlessness; (2) the decoupling of marriage and motherhood; and (3) a transformation in the relationship between the educational attainment of mothers and childbearing outcomes. These three features of the twentieth century fertility decline have implications for children’s opportunities, children’s educational achievement, and widening inequality in U.S. labor markets.
----------------------
Kai Zhao
Review of Economic Dynamics, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this paper, I extend the Barro–Becker model of endogenous fertility to incorporate specific fiscal policies and use it to study the effects of the fiscal policy changes following WWII on fertility in the United States. The US government went through large changes in fiscal policy after the beginning of WWII. The marginal income tax rate for an average American jumped from 4% on average before 1940 to approximately 25% during the war and stayed around 20% afterwards. The government debt-GDP ratio jumped from approximately 30% on average before WWII to 108% in 1946 and then dropped gradually in the following two decades to about 30% again at the end of 1960s. I find that the dramatic increase in the marginal income tax rate was an important cause of the postwar baby boom in the US because it lowered the after-tax wage and thus the opportunity cost of child-rearing. I also find that the differential change in taxes by income was an important reason why the baby boom was more pronounced among richer households (as documented by Jones and Tertilt (2008)). Furthermore, I argue that the governmentʼs debt policy may also matter for understanding fertility choices because government debt implies a tax burden on children in the future and thus affects their utility, which is a key determinant of current fertility choice in the Barro–Becker model. The results of a computational experiment show that the US governmentʼs postwar debt policy also contributed to the baby boom, but its quantitative importance is relatively small.
----------------------
House Prices and Birth Rates: The Impact of the Real Estate Market on the Decision to Have a Baby
Lisa Dettling & Melissa Kearney
Journal of Public Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This project investigates how changes in Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)-level house prices affect household fertility decisions. Recognizing that housing is a major cost associated with child rearing, and assuming that children are normal goods, we hypothesize that an increase in house prices will have a negative price effect on current period fertility. This applies to both potential first-time homeowners and current homeowners who might upgrade to a bigger house with the addition of a child. On the other hand, for current homeowners, an increase in MSA-level house prices will increase home equity, leading to a positive effect on birth rates. Our results suggest that indeed, short-term increases in house prices lead to a decline in births among non-owners and a net increase among owners. The estimates imply that a $10,000 increase leads to a 5 percent increase in fertility rates among owners and a 2.4 percent decrease among non-owners. At the mean U.S. home ownership rate, these estimates imply that the net effect of a $10,000 increase in house prices is a 0.8 percent increase in current period fertility rates. Given underlying differences in home ownership rates, the predicted net effect of house price changes varies across demographic groups. In addition, we find that changes in house prices exert a larger effect on current period birth rates than do changes in unemployment rates.
----------------------
Receiving versus being denied an abortion and subsequent drug use
Sarah Roberts, Corinne Rocca & Diana Greene Foster
Drug and Alcohol Dependence, forthcoming
Background: Some research finds that women receiving abortions are at increased risk of subsequent drug use and drug use disorders. This literature is rife with methodological problems, particularly inappropriate comparison groups.
Methods: This study used data from the Turnaway Study, a prospective, longitudinal study of women who sought abortions at 30 sites across the U.S. Participants included women presenting just prior to an abortion facility's gestational age limit who received abortions (Near Limit Abortion Group, n = 452), just beyond the gestational limit who were denied abortions (Turnaways, n = 231), and who received first trimester abortions (First Trimester Abortion Group, n = 273). This study examined the relationship between receiving versus being denied an abortion and subsequent drug use over two years. Trajectories of drug use were compared using multivariate mixed effects regression.
Results: Any drug use, frequency of drug use, and marijuana use did not change over time among women in any group. There were no differential changes over time in any drug use, frequency of drug use, or marijuana use between groups. However, Turnaways who ultimately gave birth increased use of drugs other than marijuana compared to women in the Near Limit Abortion Group (p = .041), who did not increase use.
Conclusion: Women receiving abortions did not increase drug use over two years or have higher levels of drug use than women denied abortions. Assertions that abortion leads women to use drugs to cope with the stress of abortion are not supported.
----------------------
Perceptions of susceptibility to pregnancy among U.S. women obtaining abortions
Lori Frohwirth, Ann Moore & Renata Maniaci
Social Science & Medicine, December 2013, Pages 18–26
Abstract:
More than half (52%) of unintended pregnancies in the United States occur among the 10.7% of women using no contraceptive method. We interviewed a sample of women obtaining abortions in the U.S. in 2008 (n=49) and explored their attitudes towards and beliefs about their risk of pregnancy. We found that most respondents perceived themselves to have a low likelihood of becoming pregnant at the time that the index pregnancy occurred. Respondents’ reasons for this perceived low likelihood fell into four categories: perceived invulnerability to pregnancy without contraceptive use, perceptions of subfecundity, self-described inattention to the possibility of conception and perceived protection from their current use of contraception (although the majority in this subgroup were using contraception inconsistently or incorrectly). About half of the women discussed more than one reason when explaining why they perceived themselves to have a low risk of pregnancy at that time. We propose a modified Health Belief Model to account for women’s low perceived susceptibility to pregnancy based on our results. Further research is needed to quantify the proportion of women who are at risk of pregnancy who do not believe they are at risk and their reasons why, so as to be able to better address women’s misconceptions about fecundity and conception with the goal of preventing unintended pregnancy.
----------------------
Martha Bailey
NBER Working Paper, October 2013
Abstract:
This paper assembles new evidence on some of the longer-term consequences of U.S. family planning policies, defined in this paper as those increasing legal or financial access to modern contraceptives. The analysis leverages two large policy changes that occurred during the 1960s and 1970s: first, the interaction of the birth control pill’s introduction with Comstock-era restrictions on the sale of contraceptives and the repeal of these laws after Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965; and second, the expansion of federal funding for local family planning programs from 1964 to 1973. Building on previous research that demonstrates both policies’ effects on fertility rates, I find suggestive evidence that individuals’ access to contraceptives increased their children’s college completion, labor force participation, wages, and family incomes decades later.
----------------------
Can You Buy Sperm Donor Identification? An Experiment
Glenn Cohen & Travis Coan
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, December 2013, Pages 715–740
Abstract:
In the United States, most sperm donations are anonymous. By contrast, many developed nations require sperm donors to be identified, typically requiring new sperm (and egg) donors to put identifying information into a registry that is made available to a donor-conceived child once he or she reaches the age of 18. Recently, advocates have pressed U.S. states to adopt these registries as well, and state legislatures have indicated openness to the idea. This study relies on a self-selected convenience sample to experimentally examine the economic implications of adopting a mandatory sperm donor identification regime in the United States. Our results support the hypothesis that subjects in the treatment (nonanonymity) condition need to be paid significantly more, on average, to donate their sperm. When restricting our attention to only those subjects who would ever actually consider donating sperm, we find that individuals in the control condition are willing to accept an average of $43 to donate, while individuals in the treatment group are willing to accept an average of $74. These estimates suggest that it would cost roughly $31 per sperm donation, at least in our sample, to require donors to be identified. This price differential roughly corresponds to that of a major U.S. sperm bank that operates both anonymous and identity release programs in terms of what it pays donors.
----------------------
The Educational Consequences of Teen Childbearing
Jennifer Kane et al.
Demography, forthcoming
Abstract:
A huge literature shows that teen mothers face a variety of detriments across the life course, including truncated educational attainment. To what extent is this association causal? The estimated effects of teen motherhood on schooling vary widely, ranging from no discernible difference to 2.6 fewer years among teen mothers. The magnitude of educational consequences is therefore uncertain, despite voluminous policy and prevention efforts that rest on the assumption of a negative and presumably causal effect. This study adjudicates between two potential sources of inconsistency in the literature — methodological differences or cohort differences — by using a single, high-quality data source: namely, The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. We replicate analyses across four different statistical strategies: ordinary least squares regression; propensity score matching; and parametric and semiparametric maximum likelihood estimation. Results demonstrate educational consequences of teen childbearing, with estimated effects between 0.7 and 1.9 fewer years of schooling among teen mothers. We select our preferred estimate (0.7), derived from semiparametric maximum likelihood estimation, on the basis of weighing the strengths and limitations of each approach. Based on the range of estimated effects observed in our study, we speculate that variable statistical methods are the likely source of inconsistency in the past. We conclude by discussing implications for future research and policy, and recommend that future studies employ a similar multimethod approach to evaluate findings.
----------------------
M.H.D. Larmuseau et al.
Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, 7 December 2013
Abstract:
Recent evidence suggests that seeking out extra-pair paternity (EPP) can be a viable alternative reproductive strategy for both males and females in many pair-bonded species, including humans. Accurate data on EPP rates in humans, however, are scant and mostly restricted to extant populations. Here, we provide the first large-scale, unbiased genetic study of historical EPP rates in a Western European human population based on combining Y-chromosomal data to infer genetic patrilineages with genealogical and surname data, which reflect known historical presumed paternity. Using two independent methods, we estimate that over the last few centuries, EPP rates in Flanders (Belgium) were only around 1–2% per generation. This figure is substantially lower than the 8–30% per generation reported in some behavioural studies on historical EPP rates, but comparable with the rates reported by other genetic studies of contemporary Western European populations. These results suggest that human EPP rates have not changed substantially during the last 400 years in Flanders and imply that legal genealogies rarely differ from the biological ones. This result has significant implications for a diverse set of fields, including human population genetics, historical demography, forensic science and human sociobiology.
----------------------
The Marginal Valuation of Fertility
James Holland Jones & Rebecca Bliege Bird
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Substantial theoretical and empirical evidence demonstrates that fertility entails economic, physiological, and demographic trade-offs. The existence of trade-offs suggests that fitness should be maximized by an intermediate level of fertility, but this hypothesis has not had much support in the human life-history literature. We suggest that the difficulty of finding intermediate optima may be a function of the way fitness is calculated. Evolutionary analyses of human behavior typically use lifetime reproductive success as their fitness criterion. This fitness measure implicitly assumes that women are indifferent to the timing of reproduction and that they are risk-neutral in their reproductive decision-making. In this paper, we offer an alternative, easily-calculated fitness measure that accounts for differences in reproductive timing and yields clear preferences in the face of risky reproductive decision-making. Using historical demographic data from a genealogically-detailed dataset from 19th century Utah, we show that this measure is highly concave with respect to reproductive effort. This result has three major implications: (1) if births are properly timed, a lower-fertility reproductive strategy can have the same fitness as a high-fertility strategy, (2) intermediate optima are far more likely using fitness measures that are strongly concave with respect to effort, (3) we expect mothers to have strong investment preferences with respect to the risk inherent in reproduction.
----------------------
Power Outages, Power Externalities, and Baby Booms
Alfredo Burlando
University of Oregon Working Paper, August 2013
Abstract:
Determining whether power outages have significant fertility effects is an important policy question in developing countries, where blackouts are common and modern forms of family planning scarce. Using birth records from Zanzibar, this paper shows that a 2008 month-long blackout caused a significant increase in the number of births eight to ten months later. The increase is similar across villages that had electricity, regardless of the level of electrification, while villages with no electricity connections saw no changes in birth numbers. The fact that a large fertility increase is observed in communities with very low levels of electricity suggests that the outage affected the fertility of households not connected to the grid through some spillover effect. While it is unclear whether the baby boom is likely to translate to a permanent increase in the population, the paper highlights an important hidden consequence of power instability in developing countries. It also shows evidence that electricity imposes significant externality effects on those rural populations that have little exposure to it.
----------------------
Women's Education: Harbinger of Another Spring? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Turkey
Mehmet Alper Dinçer, Neeraj Kaushal & Michael Grossman
NBER Working Paper, October 2013
Abstract:
We use the 1997 Education Law in Turkey that increased compulsory formal schooling from five to eight years to study the effect of women’s education on a range of outcomes relating to women’s fertility, their children’s health and measures of empowerment. We apply an instrumental variables methodology and find that a 10 percentage point increase in the proportion of ever married women with eight years of schooling lowered number of pregnancies per woman by 0.13 and number of children per women by 0.11. There is also some evidence of a decline in child mortality, caused by mother’s education, but effects turn statistically insignificant in our preferred models. We also find that a 10 percentage point increase in the proportion with eight years of schooling raised the proportion of women using modern family planning methods by eight to nine percent and the proportion of women with knowledge of their ovulation cycle by five to seven percent. However, we find little evidence that schooling changed women’s attitudes towards gender equality.
----------------------
Is there a viability–vulnerability tradeoff? Sex differences in fetal programming
Curt Sandman, Laura Glynn & Elysia Poggi Davis
Journal of Psychosomatic Research, October 2013, Pages 327–335
Objective: In this paper we evaluate the evidence for sex differences in fetal programming within the context of the proposed viability–vulnerability tradeoff.
Methods: We briefly review the literature on the factors contributing to primary and secondary sex ratios. Sex differences in fetal programming are assessed by summarizing previously published sex difference findings from our group (6 studies) and also new analyses of previously published findings in which sex differences were not reported (6 studies).
Results: The review and reanalysis of studies from our group are consistent with the overwhelming evidence of increasing risk for viability among males exposed to environmental adversity early in life. New evidence reported here support the argument that females, despite their adaptive agility, also are influenced by exposure to early adversity. Two primary conclusions are (i) female fetal exposure to psychobiological stress selectively influences fear/anxiety, and (ii) the effects of female fetal exposure to stress persist into preadolescence. These persisting effects are reflected in increased levels of anxiety, impaired executive function and neurological markers associated with these behaviors.
Conclusions: A tacit assumption is that females, with their adaptive flexibility early in gestation, escape the consequences of early life exposure to adversity. We argue that the consequences of male exposure to early adversity threaten their viability, effectively culling the weak and the frail and creating a surviving cohort of the fittest. Females adjust to early adversity with a variety of strategies, but their escape from the risk of early mortality and morbidity has a price of increased vulnerability expressed later in development.
----------------------
G.M. Chambers, V.P. Hoang & P.J. Illingworth
Human Reproduction, November 2013, Pages 3111-3117
Study question: What was the impact on access to assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment by different socioeconomic status (SES) groups after the introduction of a policy that increased patient out-of-pocket costs?
Study design, size, duration: Time series analysis of utilization of ART, intrauterine insemination (IUI) and clomiphene citrate by women from varying SES groups before and after the introduction of a change in the level of public funding for ART.
Participants/materials, setting, methods: Women undertaking fertility treatment in Australia between 2007 and 2010.
Main results and the role of chance: Women from higher SES quintiles use more ART treatment than those in lower SES quintiles, which likely reflects a greater ability to pay for treatment and a greater need for ART treatment as indicated by the trend to later childbearing. In 2009, 10.13 and 5.17 fresh ART cycles per 1000 women of reproductive age were performed in women in the highest and lowest SES quintiles respectively. In the 12 months after the introduction of a policy that increased out-of-pocket costs from ∼$1500 Australian dollars (€1000) to ∼$2500 (€1670) for a fresh IVF cycle, there was a 21–25% reduction in fresh ART cycles across all SES quintiles. The absolute reduction in fresh ART cycles in the highest SES quintile was double that in the lowest SES quintile.
----------------------
Making Families: Organizational Boundary Work in US Egg and Sperm Donation
Katherine Johnson
Social Science & Medicine, forthcoming
Abstract:
Egg and sperm donation can create distinct issues for designating family boundaries. These issues come to the forefront as relations between donors, recipients, and donor-conceived children have been shifting from anonymous to more open arrangements in the US and other western countries. In this study, I address US organizational practices and family boundary construction. Fertility clinics, egg donation agencies, and sperm banks are central providers of US gamete donation services. Given the disruptive potential of gamete donation, how do they manage relationships between parties? Through a content analysis of materials from twenty fertility clinics, twenty egg donation agencies, and thirty-one sperm banks, I address three major strategies of organizational boundary work: 1) creating identity categories, 2) managing information, and 3) managing interaction. I ultimately argue that even as many organizations offer opportunities for connections between parties, they exercise social control over donation arrangements through bounded relationships.
----------------------
Seonghoon Kim et al.
World Development, February 2014, Pages 232–242
Abstract:
We investigate whether the effects of parents’ in utero malnutrition extend to the second generation (their children). Specifically, we explore whether the second generation’s level of schooling is negatively impacted by their parents’ malnutrition in utero, using the China Famine as a natural experiment. We find that, the impact of mother’s in utero malnutrition due to the Famine reduced second generation male and female entrance into junior secondary school by about 5–7 percentage points. We measure famine severity with provincial excess death rates instrumented by measures of adverse climate conditions, which corrects for possible biases induced by measurement errors and omitted variables. Our findings indicate the existence of an important second-generation multiplier of policies that support the nutrition of pregnant women and infants in any country where nutritional deficiencies remain today.
----------------------
The evolutionary fitness of personality traits in a small-scale subsistence society
Michael Gurven et al.
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
The maintenance of personality variation remains an unexplained puzzle in evolutionary biology. Despite evidence among non-humans that personality variation affects fitness, few data exist to assess the personality–fitness relationship in humans. Among Tsimane forager–horticulturalists (n = 632), we test whether personality traits (assessed using a 43-item Big Five Inventory administered orally in native language) predict fertility, offspring survivorship, age of first reproduction, and other fitness correlates (extramarital affairs, conflicts, social visitation, food production, and several health measures). Among men, several personality factors associate with higher fertility, more time spent producing food and social visitation. Among women, the relationship between personality and fitness varies across regions of Tsimane territory. The only case of an intermediate personality level associated with highest fitness was found for Industriousness in men. We find that personality factors positively associated with fitness do not associate with greater health costs, although greater Extraversion and Openness may lead to more conflicts among men. Factor heritability ranges from 60% for Prosociality and Extraversion to 8% for Neuroticism. We interpret our results in light of evolutionary models that explain maintenance of personality variation, including incomplete directional selection, mutation–selection balance, condition-dependent reaction norms and fluctuating selection based on sex or spatial variability in selection pressures.
----------------------
Emily Tanner-Smith, Katarzyna Steinka-Fry & Mark Lipsey
Maternal and Child Health Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examined the effects of CenteringPregnancy group prenatal care versus individually delivered prenatal care on gestational age, birth weight, and fetal demise. We conducted a retrospective chart review and used propensity score matching to form a sample of 6,155 women receiving prenatal care delivered in a group or individual format at five sites in Tennessee. Compared to the matched group of women receiving prenatal care in an individual format, women in CenteringPregnancy group prenatal care had longer weeks of gestation (b = .35, 95 % CI [.29, .41]), higher birth weight in grams (b = 28.6, 95 % CI [4.8, 52.3]), lower odds of very low birth weight (OR = .21, 95 % CI [.06, .70]), and lower odds of fetal demise (OR = .12, 95 % CI [.02, .92]). Results indicated no evidence of differences in the odds of preterm birth or low birth weight for participants in group versus individual prenatal care. CenteringPregnancy group prenatal care had statistically and clinically significant beneficial effects on very low birth weight and fetal demise outcomes relative to traditional individually delivered prenatal care. Group prenatal care had statistically significant beneficial effects on gestational age and birth weight, although the effects were relatively small in clinical magnitude.