The Opt-In Revolution? Contraception and the Gender Gap in Wages

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bailey, Martha J.; Hershbein, Brad; Miller, Amalia R.
• 署名单位: University of Michigan System; University of Michigan; University of Virginia
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.4.3.225
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 225-254
• 关键词: womens relative wages; birth-control; marriage; pill; POWER; pregnancy; teenagers; fertility; Abortion; career

摘要

Decades of research on the US gender gap in wages describes its correlates, but little is known about why women changed their career paths in the 1960s and 1970s. This paper explores the role of the Pill in altering women's human capital investments and its ultimate implications for life-cycle wages. Using state-by-birth-cohort variation in legal access, we show that younger access to the Pill conferred an 8 percent hourly wage premium by age 50. Our estimates imply that the Pill can account for 10 percent of the convergence of the gender gap in the 1980s and 30 percent in the 1990s.