IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/34245.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Abortion, Economic Hardship, and Crime

Author

Listed:
  • Erkmen G. Aslim
  • Wei Fu
  • Caitlin K. Myers
  • Erdal Tekin
  • Bingjin Xue

Abstract

We study how abortion access affects economic hardship and crime. Using a database of abortion provider locations and operations in Texas from 2009–2019, we exploit variation in travel distance to the nearest facility created by clinic closures following the enforcement of Texas HB-2 in 2013. We confirm previous evidence that increased distance to the nearest abortion facility reduces abortions and increases births. We provide novel evidence that reduced access to abortion also leads to significant economic hardship, reflected in lower labor force participation, rising debt, widening income inequality, and heightened housing insecurity. This financial strain translates into higher rates of financially motivated crime, such as theft and burglary, with no significant effect on violent crime. These effects extend beyond directly affected individuals, reflecting intrahousehold spillovers. These findings suggest far-reaching consequences of restricted access to reproductive healthcare.

Suggested Citation

  • Erkmen G. Aslim & Wei Fu & Caitlin K. Myers & Erdal Tekin & Bingjin Xue, 2025. "Abortion, Economic Hardship, and Crime," NBER Working Papers 34245, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34245
    Note: CH EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w34245.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • 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
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of 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:nbr:nberwo:34245. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.