Legalization of abortion in the 1970s represents a major cultural change: it gives women a higher degree of freedom to directly control their fertility, allowing them to ultimately decide upon children without man’s consent and to decrease uncertainty in their expected labor market returns. This public policy and its implications on female behavior have been so far analyzed through its direct consequences on fertility and fertility technology, primarily on women actually experiencing an abortion. However, it seems relevant to evaluate its indirect effects on female bargaining power within the household, for all women that face abortion as an actual opportunity, without necessarily experiencing one. I focus on the indirect effect of abortion legalization in the United States on women’s position in the household. My findings suggest that the legalization positively affected female bargaining power.
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Paper provided by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei in its series Working Papers with number
2003.41.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply K39 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Other
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Phillip B. Levine & Douglas Staiger & Thomas J. Kane & David J. Zimmerman, 1996.
"Roe v. Wade and American Fertility,"
NBER Working Papers
5615, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Killingsworth, Mark R. & Heckman, James J., 1987.
"Female labor supply: A survey,"
Handbook of Labor Economics,
in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 103-204
Elsevier.
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