IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v213y2022ics0047272722001177.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Another day, another visit: Impact of Arkansas’ mandatory waiting period for women seeking an abortion by demographic groups

Author

Listed:
  • Altındağ, Onur
  • Joyce, Theodore

Abstract

Twenty-six states require that women seeking an abortion wait between 18 and 72 h after receipt of counseling before the abortion can be completed. Thirteen states require that the counseling be given in person necessitating at least two visits to the provider. In April of 2015, Arkansas increased the waiting period for an abortion from 24 to 48 h and more significantly, required that women receive the counseling in person. The two-visit requirement, unnecessary from a medical standpoint, substantially increases the cost in terms of travel, lost work, child care, and exposure to stigma and harassment upon accessing abortion facilities. We use a regression discontinuity design to analyze the immediate effect of Arkansas’s 2015 mandatory waiting period (MWP) law on abortion rates. We use de-identified, individual-level data from the Arkansas Department of Health (DOH) on all abortions performed in Arkansas from 2000 to 2020. Our study is the first to use monthly individual data and stratify analyses by race/ethnicity, age, parity, marital status and schooling. Abortion rates fell 17 percent among all women, but 22 percent among white non-Hispanics and 14 percent among black non-Hispanics immediately after the law went into effect. We show that the law decreased abortion rates the most among unmarried adults with children. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion will become illegal in Arkansas. Given the decline in abortion rates associated the MWP’s two-visit requirement, abortion rates will likely fall further as travel distance to the nearest legal provider increases.

Suggested Citation

  • Altındağ, Onur & Joyce, Theodore, 2022. "Another day, another visit: Impact of Arkansas’ mandatory waiting period for women seeking an abortion by demographic groups," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:213:y:2022:i:c:s0047272722001177
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104715
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272722001177
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104715?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocio Titiunik, 2014. "Robust Nonparametric Confidence Intervals for Regression‐Discontinuity Designs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2295-2326, November.
    2. Jens Ludwig & Douglas L. Miller, 2007. "Does Head Start Improve Children's Life Chances? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 159-208.
    3. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    4. Joanna Venator & Jason Fletcher, 2021. "Undue Burden Beyond Texas: An Analysis of Abortion Clinic Closures, Births, and Abortions in Wisconsin," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(3), pages 774-813, June.
    5. Upadhyay, U.D. & Weitz, T.A. & Jones, R.K. & Barar, R.E. & Foster, D.G., 2014. "Denial of abortion because of provider gestational age limits in the United States," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 104(9), pages 1687-1694.
    6. Jason M. Lindo & Caitlin Knowles Myers & Andrea Schlosser & Scott Cunningham, 2020. "How Far Is Too Far? New Evidence on Abortion Clinic Closures, Access, and Abortions," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(4), pages 1137-1160.
    7. Myers, Caitlin Knowles, 2021. "Cooling off or Burdened? The Effects of Mandatory Waiting Periods on Abortions and Births," IZA Discussion Papers 14434, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    9. Fischer, Stefanie & Royer, Heather & White, Corey, 2018. "The impacts of reduced access to abortion and family planning services on abortions, births, and contraceptive purchases," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 43-68.
    10. Guido Imbens & Karthik Kalyanaraman, 2012. "Optimal Bandwidth Choice for the Regression Discontinuity Estimator," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 79(3), pages 933-959.
    11. Lindo, Jason M. & Pineda-Torres, Mayra, 2021. "New Evidence on the Effects of Mandatory Waiting Periods for Abortion," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    12. Myers, Caitlin Knowles, 2021. "Measuring the Burden: The Effect of Travel Distance on Abortions and Births," IZA Discussion Papers 14556, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Joyce, Ted & Tan, Ruoding & Zhang, Yuxiu, 2013. "Abortion before & after Roe," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 804-815.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Clarke, Damian, 2023. "The Economics of Abortion Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 16395, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin Andersen & Sylvia Bryan & David Slusky, 2020. "COVID-19 Restrictions Reduced Abortion Clinic Visits, Even in Blue States," NBER Working Papers 28058, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Myers, Caitlin Knowles, 2021. "Measuring the Burden: The Effect of Travel Distance on Abortions and Births," IZA Discussion Papers 14556, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Caitlin Myers, 2024. "Forecasts for a post‐Roe America: The effects of increased travel distance on abortions and births," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(1), pages 39-62, January.
    4. Sarah Miller & Laura R. Wherry & Diana Greene Foster, 2023. "The Economic Consequences of Being Denied an Abortion," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 394-437, February.
    5. Andersen, Martin & Bryan, Sylvia & Slusky, David, 2020. "COVID-19 Surgical Abortion Restriction Did Not Reduce Visits to Abortion Clinics," IZA Discussion Papers 13832, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Myers, Caitlin Knowles, 2021. "Cooling off or Burdened? The Effects of Mandatory Waiting Periods on Abortions and Births," IZA Discussion Papers 14434, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Dench, Daniel & Pineda-Torres, Mayra & Myers, Caitlin Knowles, 2023. "The Effects of the Dobbs Decision on Fertility," IZA Discussion Papers 16608, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Toro, Weily & Tigre, Robson & Sampaio, Breno, 2015. "Daylight Saving Time and incidence of myocardial infarction: Evidence from a regression discontinuity design," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 1-4.
    9. Lena Janys & Bettina Siflinger, 2021. "Mental Health and Abortions among Young Women: Time-varying Unobserved Heterogeneity, Health Behaviors, and Risky Decisions," Papers 2103.12159, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    10. Hansen, Benjamin & Miller, Keaton & Weber, Caroline, 2020. "Federalism, partial prohibition, and cross-border sales: Evidence from recreational marijuana," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    11. Raphael Flepp & Pascal Flurin Meier, 2024. "Struck by Luck: Noisy Capability Cues and CEO Dismissal," Working Papers 389, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    12. Clarke, Damian & Mühlrad, Hanna, 2021. "Abortion laws and women’s health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    13. Clarke, Damian, 2023. "The Economics of Abortion Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 16395, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Peter Ganong & Simon Jäger, 2018. "A Permutation Test for the Regression Kink Design," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 113(522), pages 494-504, April.
    15. Likai Chen & Georg Keilbar & Liangjun Su & Weining Wang, 2023. "Tests for Many Treatment Effects in Regression Discontinuity Panel Data Models," Papers 2312.01162, arXiv.org.
    16. Lena Janys & Bettina Siflinger, 2021. "Mental Health and Abortions among Young Women: Time-Varying Unobserved Heterogeneity, Health Behaviors, and Risky Decisions," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 083, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    17. Tzu-Ting Yang & Hsing-Wen Han & Hsien-Ming Lien, 2014. "Patient Cost-Sharing and Healthcare Utilization in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," Working Papers 14C003, Canadian Centre for Health Economics.
    18. Yang He & Otávio Bartalotti, 2020. "Wild bootstrap for fuzzy regression discontinuity designs: obtaining robust bias-corrected confidence intervals [Using Maimonides’ rule to estimate the effect of class size on scholastic achievemen," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 23(2), pages 211-231.
    19. Joanna Venator & Jason Fletcher, 2021. "Undue Burden Beyond Texas: An Analysis of Abortion Clinic Closures, Births, and Abortions in Wisconsin," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(3), pages 774-813, June.
    20. Majbouri, Mahdi, 2017. "Sir! I'd Rather Go to School, Sir!," IZA Discussion Papers 10787, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mandatory waiting period; Abortion; Arkansas;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • K23 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:213:y:2022:i:c:s0047272722001177. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.