The Life Course Impacts of Expanded Access to Contraception in the U.S.

Sara Yeatman, University of Colorado Denver
Amanda Stevenson, University of Colorado at Boulder
Leslie Root, University of Colorado at Boulder
Katie Genadek, University of Colorado
Stefanie Mollborn, Stockholm University
James Flynn, Miami University
Joshua Sanders, University of Colorado Boulder
Jane Menken, University of Colorado Boulder

Government subsidies for contraception are often justified by assertions regarding their benefits for women’s socioeconomic lives, yet there is limited contemporary evidence in high-income settings to support these claims. In the U.S., the Colorado Family Planning Initiative (CFPI) abruptly expanded access (2009-2014) to the full range of contraceptive methods in Colorado through publicly subsidized family planning clinics in the state. To examine the effects of CFPI on fertility, education, and poverty over time, we use Census-linked administrative records to create an individual-level longitudinal dataset of almost the entire U.S. population between 2000-2020. This dataset is the closest approximation of European longitudinal registers available for the U.S. population. Using the natural experiment afforded by CFPI and difference-and-difference analyses, we find that exposure to CFPI at key ages in the life course was associated with reduced fertility at early and late reproductive ages, increased high school completion, increased university completion, and reduced exposure to poverty in early adulthood. These findings reinforce the continued importance of contraceptive access for women’s socioeconomic lives, coming at a time when access to contraception and the means to control one’s fertility is increasingly under threat in the U.S.

Keywords: Population Policies, Family Planning and Contraception

See extended abstract.