Cargando…
Population Policy: Abortion and Modern Contraception Are Substitutes
A longstanding debate exists in population policy about the relationship between modern contraception and abortion. Although theory predicts that they should be substitutes, the empirical evidence is difficult to interpret. What is required is a large-scale intervention that alters the supply (or fu...
Autores principales: | , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer US
2016
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5016566/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27383846 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13524-016-0492-8 |
_version_ | 1782452583178174464 |
---|---|
author | Miller, Grant Valente, Christine |
author_facet | Miller, Grant Valente, Christine |
author_sort | Miller, Grant |
collection | PubMed |
description | A longstanding debate exists in population policy about the relationship between modern contraception and abortion. Although theory predicts that they should be substitutes, the empirical evidence is difficult to interpret. What is required is a large-scale intervention that alters the supply (or full price) of one or the other and, importantly, that does so in isolation (reproductive health programs often bundle primary health care and family planning—and in some instances, abortion services). In this article, we study Nepal’s 2004 legalization of abortion provision and subsequent expansion of abortion services, an unusual and rapidly implemented policy meeting these requirements. Using four waves of rich individual-level data representative of fertile-age Nepalese women, we find robust evidence of substitution between modern contraception and abortion. This finding has important implications for public policy and foreign aid, suggesting that an effective strategy for reducing expensive and potentially unsafe abortions may be to expand the supply of modern contraceptives. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13524-016-0492-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5016566 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Springer US |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-50165662016-09-20 Population Policy: Abortion and Modern Contraception Are Substitutes Miller, Grant Valente, Christine Demography Article A longstanding debate exists in population policy about the relationship between modern contraception and abortion. Although theory predicts that they should be substitutes, the empirical evidence is difficult to interpret. What is required is a large-scale intervention that alters the supply (or full price) of one or the other and, importantly, that does so in isolation (reproductive health programs often bundle primary health care and family planning—and in some instances, abortion services). In this article, we study Nepal’s 2004 legalization of abortion provision and subsequent expansion of abortion services, an unusual and rapidly implemented policy meeting these requirements. Using four waves of rich individual-level data representative of fertile-age Nepalese women, we find robust evidence of substitution between modern contraception and abortion. This finding has important implications for public policy and foreign aid, suggesting that an effective strategy for reducing expensive and potentially unsafe abortions may be to expand the supply of modern contraceptives. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13524-016-0492-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer US 2016-07-06 2016-08 /pmc/articles/PMC5016566/ /pubmed/27383846 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13524-016-0492-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2016 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
spellingShingle | Article Miller, Grant Valente, Christine Population Policy: Abortion and Modern Contraception Are Substitutes |
title | Population Policy: Abortion and Modern Contraception Are Substitutes |
title_full | Population Policy: Abortion and Modern Contraception Are Substitutes |
title_fullStr | Population Policy: Abortion and Modern Contraception Are Substitutes |
title_full_unstemmed | Population Policy: Abortion and Modern Contraception Are Substitutes |
title_short | Population Policy: Abortion and Modern Contraception Are Substitutes |
title_sort | population policy: abortion and modern contraception are substitutes |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5016566/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27383846 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13524-016-0492-8 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT millergrant populationpolicyabortionandmoderncontraceptionaresubstitutes AT valentechristine populationpolicyabortionandmoderncontraceptionaresubstitutes |