Legal Access to Reproductive Control Technology, Women’s Education, and Earnings Approaching Retirement

What do historical changes in legal access to reproductive health care technology tell us about the long-run effects of such changes? We investigate this question using data from the Health and Retirement Study and an identification strategy leveraging variation in exposure to legal changes in access across cohorts born in the same states. We find positive effects on educational attainment that align with prior work but are not statistically significant. We also find positive effects on working in a Social Security-covered job in women's 20s and 30s but no evidence of positive effects on women's earnings in their 50s.