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Abortion and Crime: Unwanted Children and Out-of-Wedlock Births

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  • John Lott

    (American Enterprise Institute)

  • John Whitley

    (University of Adelaide, School of Economics)

Abstract

Abortion may prevent the birth of "unwanted" children, who would have relatively small investments in human capital and a higher probability of crime. On the other hand, some research suggests that legalizing abortion increases out-of-wedlock births and single parent families, which implies the opposite impact on investments in human capital and thus crime. The question is: what is the net impact? We find evidence that legalizing abortion increased murder rates by around about 0.5 to 7 percent. Previous estimates are shown to suffer from not directly linking the cohorts who are committing crime with whether they had been born before or after abortion was legal.

Suggested Citation

  • John Lott & John Whitley, "undated". "Abortion and Crime: Unwanted Children and Out-of-Wedlock Births," Yale Law School John M. Olin Center for Studies in Law, Economics, and Public Policy Working Paper Series yale_lepp-1018, Yale Law School John M. Olin Center for Studies in Law, Economics, and Public Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:bep:yaloln:yale_lepp-1018
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    File URL: http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=yale/lepp
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ted Joyce, 2004. "Did Legalized Abortion Lower Crime?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(1).
    2. Plassmann, Florenz & Tideman, T Nicolaus, 2001. "Does the Right to Carry Concealed Handguns Deter Countable Crimes? Only a Count Analysis Can Say," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(2), pages 771-798, October.
    3. John J. Donohue III & Steven D. Levitt, 2001. "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 379-420.
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    6. Ted Joyce, 2001. "Did Legalized Abortion Lower Crime?," NBER Working Papers 8319, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Donohue, John J, III & Siegelman, Peter, 1998. "Allocating Resources among Prisons and Social Programs in the Battle against Crime," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(1), pages 1-43, January.
    8. Bronars, Stephen G & Grogger, Jeff, 1994. "The Economic Consequences of Unwed Motherhood: Using Twin Births as a Natural Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1141-1156, December.
    9. Jonathan Gruber & Phillip Levine & Douglas Staiger, 1999. "Abortion Legalization and Child Living Circumstances: Who is the "Marginal Child"?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 263-291.
    10. Lott, John Jr., 1987. "Juvenile delinquency and education: A comparison of public and private provision," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 163-175, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Crinò, Rosario & Immordino, Giovanni & Piccolo, Salvatore, 2019. "Marginal deterrence at work," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 586-612.
    2. Michael A. Clemens, 2017. "The Meaning Of Failed Replications: A Review And Proposal," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 326-342, February.
    3. Wanchuan Lin & Juan Pantano, 2015. "The unintended: negative outcomes over the life cycle," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(2), pages 479-508, April.
    4. Edinaldo Tebaldi & Erik Alda, 2017. "Quality of Institutions and Violence Incidence: a Cross-Country Analysis," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 45(3), pages 365-384, September.
    5. François, Abel & Magni-Berton, Raul & Weill, Laurent, 2014. "Abortion and crime: Cross-country evidence from Europe," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 24-35.
    6. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2011. "Econometric Estimates of Deterrence of the Death Penalty: Facts or Ideology?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 448-478, August.
    7. Chen, Daniel L. & Levonyan, Vardges & Yeh, Susan, 2016. "Policies Affect Preferences: Evidence from Random Variation in Abortion Jurisprudence," IAST Working Papers 16-58, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    8. Travaglini, Guido, 2010. "Supervised Principal Components and Factor Instrumental Variables. An Application to Violent CrimeTrends in the US, 1982-2005," MPRA Paper 22077, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Michał Brzeziński & Maria Halber, 2012. "Testing the Perturbation Sensitivity of Abortion-Crime Regressions," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 6(2), June.
    10. Todd D. Kendall & Robert Tamura, 2010. "Unmarried Fertility, Crime, and Social Stigma," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(1), pages 185-221, February.
    11. Ted Joyce, 2001. "Did Legalized Abortion Lower Crime?," NBER Working Papers 8319, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Durlauf, Steven N. & Navarro, Salvador & Rivers, David A., 2010. "Understanding aggregate crime regressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 158(2), pages 306-317, October.

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