cite: Bailey2012
author: Bailey, M. J., Hershbein, B., & Miller, A. R.
year: 2012
title: The Opt-In Revolution? Contraception and the Gender Gap in Wages
publisher: "Economic journal: applied economics"
uri: https://doi.org/10.1257/app.4.3.225
pubtype: article
discipline: economics

country: United States
period: 1968-1989
maxlength:
targeting: implicit
group: young women
data: longitudinal administrative National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women (NLS-YW)

design: quasi-experimental
method: linear regression models; OLS; Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition with recentered influence function (RIF) procedure
sample: 5159
unit: individual
representativeness: national
causal: 0 # 0 correlation / 1 causal

theory:
limitations: dataset does not capture access to contraception beyond age 20 and social multiplier effects (e.g. changed hiring/promotion patterns)
observation:
  - intervention: technological change (contraception)
    institutional: 0
    structural: 1
    agency: 0
    inequality: gender; income
    type: 1 # 0 vertical / 1 horizontal
    indicator: 1 # 0 absolute / 1 relative
    measures: hourly wage distribution (gendered)
    findings: early legal access to contraceptives ('the pill') influenced decrease in gender gap by 10% in 1980s, 30% in 1990s; estimates 1/3rd of total female wage gains induced by access 1980s-1990s
    channels: increased labor market experience (due to not exiting early); greater educational attainment, occupational upgrading; spurred personal investment in human capital and careers
    direction: -1 # -1 neg / 0 none / 1 pos
    significance: 2 # 0 nsg / 1 msg / 2 sg

notes:
annotation: |
  A study on the effects of the introduction of legal access to contraceptive measures for women in the United States, measuring the impacts on closing the gender gap through the gendered hourly working wage distribution.
  The study finds that of the closing gender pay gap from 1980 to 2000, legal access to 'the pill' as contraceptive from an early age contributed by nearly percent in the 1980s and over 30 percent in the 1990s.
  Thus, overall the authors estimate that nearly one third of total female wage gains during this time were attributable to legal access to contraception.
  The primary channels identified are greater educational attainment, occupational upgrading, and increased labour market experience made possible due to no early exit.
  The authors also argue that the pill spurred individual agency to invest in personal human capital and career.
  However, there are some limitations to the findings: The dataset cannot capture specific access to contraception beyond age 20, which makes the window of analysis more restricted and especially focused on the segment of women under 21.
  Additionally, the study can not control for social multiplier effects such as employers reacting with changed hiring or promotion patterns or expectations about marriage and childbearing, as well as the overall coinciding paradigmatic change in norms and ideas about women's work and end of the national baby boom.