Abortion Legalization and Adolescent Substance Use / Kerwin Kofi Charles, Melvin Stephens Jr..

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Charles, Kerwin Kofi.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Stephens, Melvin, Jr.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w9193.

NBER working paper series no. w9193

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2002.

Summary:

We assess whether in utero exposure to legalized abortion in the early 1970's affected individuals' propensities to use controlled substances as adolescents. We exploit the fact that some states legalized abortion before national legalization in 1973 to compare differences in substance use for adolescents across birth cohorts in different states. We find that persons exposed to early legalization were, on average, much less likely to use controlled substances. We also assess how substance use varies with state level birth rates and abortion ratios. Overall, our results suggest that legalization lowered substance use because of the selective use of abortion by relatively disadvantaged women.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2002.