The impact of legalized abortion on adolescent childbearing in New York City

Abstract

In this paper we estimate the impact on adolescent childbearing of the liberalization of the New York State abortion law in 1970. Using Box-Jenkins time series techniques to analyze monthly data on the number of births to White and Black adolescents from January 1963 to December 1987, we found that the level of births to Black adolescents living in New York City fell 18.7 percent, approximately 142 fewer births per month, after the law became effective; the level of White births fell 14.1 percent, approximately 111 fewer births per month. Projections based on the fitted model suggest that a ban on legalized abortion today would have a major impact on adolescent childbearing in New York City as well as other parts of the country, although the magnitude of the change would vary according to local conditions.