Equilibrium effects of abortion restrictions on cohort fertility: Why restricting abortion access can reduce human capital, social welfare, and lifetime fertility rates

Abstract

The United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has made understanding the impact of abortion laws increasingly important and timely. We investigate recent claims by policymakers that abortion restrictions increase birth rates; we also evaluate consequences for human capital and women’s welfare. We motivate our theoretical contribution by presenting some simple empirical analysis of cross-country associations. These provide no evidence of a significant association between abortion legality and birth rates. Our main contribution is an applied economic theory model. Contrary to some policy claims, but in line with stylized empirical facts, abortion bans can lower equilibrium fertility: An abortion ban might cause women to have more unintended births at young ages, but this could reduce their accumulation of capabilities that would prepare them to have a larger family later. We solve a 2-period version of the model, and simulate it and a 3-period version. If women with more resources can afford to choose more children (because of costs of having, raising, and educating children), then the sign of the effect on lifetime fertility depends on whether the increase in fertility due directly to unintended births is outweighed by the effect on subsequent fertility choices. But either way, abortion restrictions are likely to reduce human capital and harm women’s welfare.