The Opt-In Revolution? Contraception and the Gender Gap in Wages / Martha J. Bailey, Brad Hershbein, Amalia R. Miller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bailey, Martha J.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Hershbein, Brad.

Miller, Amalia R.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w17922.

NBER working paper series no. w17922

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2012.

Summary:

Decades of research on the U.S. gender gap in wages describes its correlates, but little is known about why women changed their career paths in the 1960s and 1970s. This paper explores the role of "the Pill" in altering women's human capital investments and its ultimate implications for life-cycle wages. Using state-by-birth-cohort variation in legal access, we show that younger access to the Pill conferred an 8-percent hourly wage premium by age fifty. Our estimates imply that the Pill can account for 10 percent of the convergence of the gender gap in the 1980s and 30 percent in the 1990s.

Notes:

Print version record

March 2012.