Legal abortions, subsidized family planning services, and the U.S. “birth dearth”

Abstract

The U.S. fertility rate began a sharp and unexpected decline in 1971. Among the explanations for this decline are the liberalization of abortion laws and the initiation of major federal support for family planning services which began several years earlier. Using states as the unit for correlation analyses, we find no evidence consistent with the notion that subsidized family planning services contributed to the “birth dearth,” but we identify trends that suggest legal abortions might have had an effect.