CCPR-028-07

Unwanted Fertility, Contraceptive Technology and Crime: Exploiting a

Natural Experiment in Access to The Pill
Juan Pantano (UCLA)

Abstract

Donohue and Levitt (2001) claim to explain a substantial part of
the recent decline in U.S. crime rates with the legalization of abortion
undertaken in the early 70s. While the validity of these findings
remains heavily debated, they point to unwanted fertility as a potentially
important determinant of a cohort’s criminality. In that spirit,
I exploit a natural experiment induced by policy changes during the
'60s and '70s. After the introduction of the contraceptive pill in 1960,
single women below the age of majority faced restricted access to this
new contraceptive method. Mostly as a by-product of unrelated policy
changes, these access restrictions were lifted differentially across states
during the '60s and '70s. This differential timing of contraceptive
liberalization induces exogenous variation that can be used to identify
the causal effect of unwanted fertility on crime. Preliminary results
are consistent with the arguments of Donohue & Levitt. They indicate
that greater flexibility to avoid unwanted pregnancies (through better
contraceptive technology) reduces crime about two decades later,
when undesired children would have reached their criminal prime.
 

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