IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/23366.html

How Far Is Too Far? New Evidence on Abortion Clinic Closures, Access, and Abortions

Author

Listed:
  • Jason M. Lindo
  • Caitlin Myers
  • Andrea Schlosser
  • Scott Cunningham

Abstract

We document the effects of abortion-clinic closures on clinic access, abortions, and births using variation generated by a law that shuttered nearly half of Texas' clinics. Increases in distance have significant effects for women initially living within 200 miles of a clinic. The largest effect is for those nearest to clinics for whom a 25-mile increase reduces abortion 10%. We also demonstrate the importance of congestion with a proxy capturing effects of closures which have little impact on distance but which reduce clinics per-capita. These effects account for 59% of the effects of clinic closures on abortion.

Suggested Citation

  • Jason M. Lindo & Caitlin Myers & Andrea Schlosser & Scott Cunningham, 2017. "How Far Is Too Far? New Evidence on Abortion Clinic Closures, Access, and Abortions," NBER Working Papers 23366, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23366
    Note: CH EH LE PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w23366.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Packham, Analisa, 2017. "Family planning funding cuts and teen childbearing," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 168-185.
    2. Joanna Lahey, 2014. "The Effect of Anti-Abortion Legislation on Nineteenth Century Fertility," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(3), pages 939-948, June.
    3. Elizabeth Oltmans Ananat & Jonathan Gruber & Phillip Levine, 2007. "Abortion Legalization and Life-Cycle Fertility," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(2).
    4. Robert Picard, 2010. "GEONEAR: Stata module to find nearest neighbors using geodetic distances," Statistical Software Components S457146, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 14 Sep 2019.
    5. Joyce, Ted & Tan, Ruoding & Zhang, Yuxiu, 2013. "Abortion before & after Roe," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 804-815.
    6. Yao Lu & David J. G. Slusky, 2016. "The Impact of Women's Health Clinic Closures on Preventive Care," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 100-124, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Martha J. Bailey & Jason M. Lindo, 2017. "Access and Use of Contraception and Its Effects on Women’s Outcomes in the U.S," NBER Working Papers 23465, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Clarke, Damian & Mühlrad, Hanna, 2021. "Abortion laws and women’s health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Kelly, Andrea & Lindo, Jason M. & Packham, Analisa, 2020. "The power of the IUD: Effects of expanding access to contraception through Title X clinics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    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. Dench, Daniel & Pineda-Torres, Mayra & Myers, Caitlin, 2024. "The effects of post-Dobbs abortion bans on fertility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    6. 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.
    7. 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).
    8. Nina Brooks & Tom Zohar, 2021. "Out of Labor and Into the Labor Force? The Role of Abortion Access, Social Stigma, and Financial Constraints," Working Papers wp2021_2111, CEMFI.
    9. Jones, Kelly M. & Pineda-Torres, Mayra, 2024. "TRAP’d Teens: Impacts of abortion provider regulations on fertility & education," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    10. 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).
    11. Marcén, Miriam & Molina, José Alberto & Morales, Marina, 2018. "The effect of culture on the fertility decisions of immigrant women in the United States," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 15-28.
    12. Simonsen, Marianne & Skipper, Lars & Skipper, Niels & Thingholm, Peter Rønø, 2021. "Discontinuity in care: Practice closures among primary care providers and patient health care utilization," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    13. Hussey, Andrew & Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy, Alex & Walker, Jay, 2010. "AIDing Contraception: HIV and Recent Trends in Abortion Rates," MPRA Paper 20895, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Myers, Caitlin & Ladd, Daniel, 2020. "Did parental involvement laws grow teeth? The effects of state restrictions on minors’ access to abortion," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    15. Héctor Bellido & Miriam Marcén, 2019. "Fertility and the business cycle: the European case," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 1289-1319, December.
    16. 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.
    17. Guidetti, Bruna & Pereda, Paula & Severnini, Edson, 2020. "Health Shocks under Hospital Capacity Constraint: Evidence from Air Pollution in Sao Paulo, Brazil," IZA Discussion Papers 13211, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Youjin Hahn & Liang Choon Wang & Hee-Seung Yang, 2012. "Child vs. Pet: The Effect of Abortion Legalization on the Demand for Pets," Monash Economics Working Papers 57-12, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    19. Melanie Guldi, 2008. "Fertility effects of abortion and birth control pill access for minors," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(4), pages 817-827, November.
    20. 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).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • 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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:23366. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.