THE EFFECTS OF WELFARE ELIGIBILITY AND ABORTION RESTRICTIONS ON THE PREGNANCY DECISIONS OF YOUNG WOMEN
Open Access
- Author:
- Sturgeon, Samuel Woolley
- Graduate Program:
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- December 05, 2008
- Committee Members:
- Dave Eggebeen, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
David Eggebeen, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Gordon F De Jong, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Michael J Rovine, Committee Member
Deborah Jean Roempke Graefe, Committee Member
Kathryn Bancroft Hynes, Committee Member - Keywords:
- NLSY97
welfare reform
Abortion
pregnancy - Abstract:
- Using data on state abortion restrictions, state family formation related welfare policy stringency, and the fertility and pregnancy histories of women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort (NLSY97), this project examined whether or not state welfare and abortion policies between 1997 and 2004 are related to one another, and whether these polices affect the decisions of young mothers regarding pregnancy and pregnancy resolution. One of the major goals of the 1996 welfare reforms was to reduce non-marital fertility as a means of reducing welfare dependence. However, some groups feared that efforts to limit non-marital fertility would lead to an increase in abortion. Moreover, economic theory suggests that strict welfare and abortion policies may be working at cross purposes with one another. In general, I find that states with more stringent abortion policies tended to adopt more stringent family formation related welfare polices; however, stringent state welfare and abortion policies were only mildly correlated over this time period (r = 0.11). Moreover, I find some evidence to suggest that state policy stringency summary scores may be a better means of examining the effects of state policy stringency than estimating the effects of specific individual policies. In general, state welfare and abortion policies did not appear to affect either the likelihood of pregnancy among all of the women in the sample, or the likelihood that the pregnant women in the sample would elect to have an abortion over a live birth. In addition, there was little evidence to suggest that stringent state welfare and abortion polices are working at cross purposes when it comes to women’s pregnancy decisions. Overall, the characteristics of the survey sample (e.g. too small, too homogeneous, not representative at the state level, etc.) made it difficult to isolate the effects of state policies on the respondents’ pregnancy decisions net of other unmeasured state characteristics, thus making it impossible to assess the effects of these policies with this data.