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Title: The effect of infertility mandates on the timing of marriage and births
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2009
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Abstract: Fertility treatments have been available since the 70s and more and more women turn to them when facing fertility problems. Several US states enacted mandates forcing insurance companies to cover infertility treatment to different extents. The availability of infertility insurance is likely to affect birth rates through several mechanisms. First, the price of treatment is reduced and therefore more women with fertility problems can access it. Second, multiple births are more frequent in pregnancies originated in fertility treatments. Previous studies show that mandated infertility insurance increases first birth rates for women over 35 (Schmidt, 2007, Buckles, 2005) as well as the incidence of multiple births (Buckles, 2005). Instead of focusing on the amount of births, we focus on their timing: women may delay childbearing because they know that infertility treatment is covered by their insurance; on the other hand, infertile women may seek treatment earlier because its price is lower. Moreover, to the extent that marriage and fertility are often intertwined decisions, the timing of first marriages may also be affected. We analyze the impact of infertility insurance mandates on the timing of first marriages and births using Abadie et al. (2007) synthetic control method, a data-driven procedure to construct "ideal" control groups. Our data comes from the National Vital Statistics System and the Current Population Survey and the timing of the mandates adopted by the states is consistent with the literature. Preliminary results show that infertility insurance mandates effects on women's ageat first marriage are heterogeneous across states.
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Authors: Sanz-de-Galdeano, Anna; Machado, Matilde
Publisher: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Fertility and Mortality
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