Benefits from delay? The effect of abortion availability on young women and their children

While much is now known about the effects of the arrival of the contraceptive pill on the fertility choices and other outcomes of women, there has been less study of the effects of abortion availability. Abortion was made widely available within week 12 of gestation to teenage women in Oslo several years before the rest of Norway. I use a differences-in-differences approach to examine the effects on teen childbearing, fertility at older ages, educational attainment, and labor market outcomes of the affected women. I also study several outcomes for the first-born children of these women. I find that abortion availability delayed fertility but did not reduce completed family size. It also resulted in higher educational attainment. Children of mothers who had access to abortion are also found to have better outcomes.