Martha J. Bailey
Department of Economics, University of Michigan
and National Bureau of Economic Research
This Talk

Reflections on the 20th Century
 How has women’s work and childbearing
changed?
 Big question: Why has women’s work and
childbearing changed?

Quantify the Role of the Birth Control Pill
Demography 275, February 2011
2
Reflections on the 20th Century

“the Female Century”
Economist, September 1999

“the demographic century”
Joseph Chamie, 2003
Director Population Division of the UN
Dept. of Economic & Social Affairs
Demography 275, February 2011
3
The Female Century
1.
Big changes in the number of women
working for pay
2.
Big changes in the age of women
participating in the paid labor force
3.
Big changes in the proportion of women
graduating from college (and majors &
occupations they choose)
4.
Big changes in women’s pay
Demography 275, February 2011
4
Women’s Labor-Force Participation
0.7
0.657
0.6
0.619
0.532
0.5
0.446
0.4
0.362
0.306
0.3
0.248
0.237
0.206
0.2
0.258
0.242
0.237
0.189
0.1
0
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
Source: 1890-1940, Goldin (1990: 17); 1940-1960 IPUMS, Ruggles and Sobek (1997) ; 1963-2001 March CPS, Unicon (2001)
Demography 275, February 2011
5
Women’s Labor-Force Participation,
Selected Countries, 1960-2000
Demography 275, February 2011
6
Women’s labor force participation,
1970
1960
.7
.8
by birth cohort and age
1955
.6
1930
.5
1950
1920
.3
.4
1940
1900
20
30
40
Age of cohort
Demography 275, February 2011
50
60
7
Ratio of Median Earnings
of Women to Men
Source: Goldin (2006). Plots the median female-male earnings ratio for full-time year round civilian workers.
Demography 275, February 2011
8
The Demographic Century
1.
2.
Big changes in the number of children
women have
Big changes in certainty and timing of
childbirth
Demography 275, February 2011
9
General Fertility Rate,
United States 1895-1980
Source: Historical Statistics
Demography 275, February 2011
10
Distribution of Children Ever Born
0.4
0.35
1949
0.3
0.25
1910
1940
0.2
1920
0.15
1930
0.1
0.05
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Demography 275, February 2011
8
9
10
11
12
11
What We Know about Why?

Fundamental changes in women’s work and
childbearing outcomes

Harder to say why things changes occurred
Demography 275, February 2011
12
Debate about the Answers

Industrial changes increased “demand” for
women in market work
○ Clerical work, manufacturing during WWII,
demand for teachers, microcomputer revolution

Home production increased “supply” of
women to market work
○ Household: Indoor plumbing, electrification and
household appliances
○ Birth regulation: Childbearing becomes deliberate

Institutional changes affected labor supply
and demand
○ Changing norms, discrimination, and regulation
Demography 275, February 2011
13
Do the Answers Matter?

Empowerment of women
 Equity based arguments
 Expands the talent pool directly
 Associated with education and health of
children, reductions in poverty, and longerterm economic development

But how to do it?
 Stimulating certain sectors, regulating labor
markets
 Subsidizing home appliances, family
planning
Demography 275, February 2011
14
Quantifying the Importance of
“the Pill”

Enovid approved as the first oral
contraceptive in 1960 and was “wildly
popular”

Isolating its role difficult in the 1960s is
difficult
Demography 275, February 2011
15
General Fertility Rate,
1910-1980
Enovid
approved for
the regulation
of menses
1957
Demography 275, February 2011
1960
Enovid
approved for
long-term use
as
contraceptive
16
Second Wave Feminism and
Cultural Changes
Demography 275, February 2011
17
How Important Was the Pill?
“The ‘contraceptive revolution’ …
ushered in by the pill has probably
not been a major cause of the
sharp drop in fertility in recent
decades”
~Gary Becker
“The impact of the Pill is overrated.”
~Gloria Steinem
Demography 275, February 2011
18
How Important Was the Pill?
“There is a straight line between the Pill
and the changes in family structure
we see now…22% of women earning
more than their husbands. In 1970,
70% of women with children under 6
were at home; 30% worked—now
that’s roughly reversed.”
~Terry O’Neill,
National Organization for Women
Demography 275, February 2011
19
Two Studies of the Pill

#1 The Pill’s Effect on Marital Fertility
(AER, 2010)

#2 The Pill’s Effect on the Careers of
Young Women (QJE 2006, 2009 joint
with Brad Hershbein and Amalia Miller
2010)
Demography 275, February 2011
20
A Little Economics
max U(Z,N) s.t. pN+Z  M
Assumptions:
(1) averting births costless
(2) choice of births occurs with certainty
Demography 275, February 2011
21
Modified Set-Up
Let N=NN – A
where NN : “natural fertility” and A: averted births
max U(Z, NN – A) s.t. p(NN – A) + Z + C(A)  M
Demography 275, February 2011
22
Marginal Benefit of Averting Births
Expected Births Averted
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Expected Fertility
Demography 275, February 2011
23
Adding Marginal Costs
Zero marginal cost of
averting births
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
8 Births Averted
7
Expected
1
0
Expected Fertility
Demography 275, February 2011
24
Adding Marginal Costs
Positive marginal cost
of averting births
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
8 Births Averted
7
Expected
1
0
Expected Fertility
Demography 275, February 2011
25
The “Pill” Affects Supply of Births
1.
Lowers the marginal cost of averting
births
 Decreases price of child quality (w.r.t.
quantity)
 Taken separate from time of intimacy
(reduces behavioral costs, psychic costs;
eliminates bargaining and coordinating)
2.
Reduces uncertainty surrounding
terminal number and timing
Demography 275, February 2011
26
Marginal Benefit
Positive marginal cost
of averting births
Marginal cost of
averting births with
the Pill
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
8 Births Averted
7
Expected
1
0
Expected Fertility
Demography 275, February 2011
27
#1 The Pill and Marital Fertility
1873: Federal Comstock Act passed
1960: 33 states had Comstock laws
surviving; 25 sales bans; 11 had
sales bans without physician
exceptions
Estelle Griswold
Executive Director of
Planned Parenthood League
of Connecticut
1965: US. Supreme Court decision
Griswold enjoins Connecticut’s
statute—states across the
nation revised their statutes
Demography 275, February 2011
28
Empirical Strategy
Claim:
1.

Different language of Comstock laws imply
different marginal costs of using the Pill within
year
Test of how much Pill matters:
2.

Examine how contraceptive use and birth rates
changed in places with sales bans
Demography 275, February 2011
29
Empirical Test
1965
Griswold
decision
1900
1957
FDA
approves
Enovid
Comstock
Laws
enacted
Laws relatively ineffective preventing
sales/use of contraceptives
Demography 275, February 2011
30
Empirical Test
1965
Griswold
decision
1900
1957
FDA
approves
Enovid
Comstock
Laws
enacted
Laws interact with Pill technology :
1. Doctors reluctant to prescribe
it/pharmacists to supply illegally
2. Black market unlikely to function
3. Marginal cost falls differentially in
states without sales bans
Demography 275, February 2011
31
Empirical Test
1965
Griswold
decision
1900
1957
FDA
approves
Enovid
1970
Comstock
Laws
enacted
States repeal or
revise laws
and prices
converge
Demography 275, February 2011
32
Ever Used Oral Contraception
(Comstock Sales Ban-No Restriction)
0.02
0.01
0
Jan-60
-0.01
Jan-61
Jan-62
Jan-63
Jan-64
Jan-65
-0.02
-0.03
-0.04
-0.05
-0.06
-0.07
-0.08
-0.09
-0.1
NE
MW
S
Demography 275, February 2011
W
33
Changes in Observables?

Not really
 Geography
 Age
 Race
 Religion
 Education
 Ideal number of children

Regressions that adjust for these
differences imply lower use in states with
sales bans of 25 %
Demography 275, February 2011
34
Changes in Unobservables?
Differences in attitudes or reporting?
 Differences in 1955 use or attitudes about
contraception? No
 Differences in 1965 use of other
contraceptives (accounts for reporting)? No
 Differences in 1970 use of Pill or other
contraceptives (after bans disappear)? No
 Differences in price due to legal regime
Demography 275, February 2011
35
Sales Bans and Birth Rates
15
1957:FDA
approves
Enovid
1965: Griswold
10
Relative to states in same
census region
5
≈ 7 births/1000
0
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
-5
-10
Demography 275, February 2011
36
The Big Picture
≈18/30
births
=0.60
Demography 275, February 2011
37
#2: The Pill and Young Women’s Careers
1.
In 1960, married women
had already made their
career and family
decisions without the Pill
2.
How did young women’s
decisions about family and
career change once they
knew they had control of
childbearing?
Demography 275, February 2011
38
Women’s Labor Force Participation,
1970
1960
.7
.8
by cohort and age
.6
1955
1930
.5
1950
1940
.3
.4
1920
20
30
1900
40
Age of cohort
Demography 275, February 2011
50
60
39
Natural Experiment in
“Early Legal Access” (ELA) to Pill

Legal age of majority
 Today: 18
 1960: 21
Changes in the legal age, 1960 to 1976
 Within-cohort variation in access to the Pill at
age 18

Demography 275, February 2011
40
Random Assignment of ELA
“Early legal access”
Treatment group
Comparison group
Legal access to Pill at
age 18 or marriage
Legal access to Pill at
age 21
18
21
Demography 275, February 2011
Age
41
Empirical Strategy
a: ages broken into 5-year groups, g.
s: state of residence at age 21
c: birth cohorts 1943-1953
OLS for continuous DVs
Probits for binary DVs (APEs reported)
Fixed effects for state, cohort, age group
Standard errors clustered at state-level
Baseline
characteristics
cov(ELA,)0
ELA
cov(ELA,Pill|Z)>0
cov(ELA,)0
Subsequent
“treatments” like
abortion
Women’s decisions:
1. Marriage timing
and first birth
timing
2. Expectations
about work
3. Investments in
career
4. Wages
Testing Identifying
Assumptions

Valid strategy?
 Is ELA correlated with the error?
○ Baseline assignment not conditionally
random?
Random Assignment?
Demography 275, February 2011
45
Women’s Career Investments
Demography 275, February 2011
46
Women’s Work for Pay
Demography 275, February 2011
47
Women’s Lifetime Earnings
Demography 275, February 2011
48
Quantitative Conclusions

Innovations in birth control sped change
in the post-1960 period
 Timing of changes in work and childbearing
relate closely to the diffusion of the Pill
 Evidence from “natural experiments” shows
that the Pill reduced childbearing and
boosted young women’s career investment
Demography 275, February 2011
49
Broader Conclusions
Welfare effects




Economic empowerment of women
Panacea?
Effects on children?
But, the Pill was not the only thing




The “demand” curve
Pill was a tool that allowed women to
capitalize on the growing opportunities
One part of the larger story of the 20th
century
Demography 275, February 2011
50