The long-term effect of birth control and abortion laws (1960-1979) on women’s health at old age: Evidence from the US Health and Retirement Study

The oral contraceptive pill, approved by the Food and Drug Administration for contraceptive use
in 1960 (Knowles, 2012), has been hypothesized as a major factor explaining the large increase
in labor force participation, reduced fertility, and delayed marriage among young women during
the second half of the twentieth century. An important, yet untested, hypothesis is that by
transforming young women’s life trajectories, contraception laws may also have had unexpected
consequences on women’s long-term health trajectories. In addition, recent evidence (Knowles,
2013), suggests that abortion laws were also essential in transforming women’s labor market,
marriage, and fertility outcomes. Laws enabling access to the pill often coincided with laws
enabling access to contraception. Therefore, a framework that assesses the complete policy
environment is essential in understanding the impact of contraception and abortion laws on
women’s outcomes. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no studies examining whether
the combination of contraception and abortion laws that transformed women’s life trajectories
during the second half of the 20th century had any long-term, permanent effects on women’s
health.