Abortion legalization in Uruguay: effects on adolescent fertility

The Latin America and the Caribbean adolescent fertility rate is among the highest in the world: about 1.7 million children are born to teen mothers every year, and most of them are declared as being unintended pregnancies. The region also has the highest rate of unintended pregnancy of any world re...

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Autores principales: Cabella, Wanda, Velázquez Battistessa, Cecilia
Formato: Articulo Documento de trabajo
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/137471
https://www.cedlas.econo.unlp.edu.ar/wp/wp-content/uploads/doc_cedlas298.pdf?dl=0
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id I19-R120-10915-137471
record_format dspace
institution Universidad Nacional de La Plata
institution_str I-19
repository_str R-120
collection SEDICI (UNLP)
language Inglés
topic Ciencias Económicas
Ciencias Sociales
Aborto
Legalización
Uruguay
Adolescentes
spellingShingle Ciencias Económicas
Ciencias Sociales
Aborto
Legalización
Uruguay
Adolescentes
Cabella, Wanda
Velázquez Battistessa, Cecilia
Abortion legalization in Uruguay: effects on adolescent fertility
topic_facet Ciencias Económicas
Ciencias Sociales
Aborto
Legalización
Uruguay
Adolescentes
description The Latin America and the Caribbean adolescent fertility rate is among the highest in the world: about 1.7 million children are born to teen mothers every year, and most of them are declared as being unintended pregnancies. The region also has the highest rate of unintended pregnancy of any world region, and nearly half of such pregnancies end in abortion. However, fewer than 18% of the region’s women live in countries where abortion is broadly legal. This paper estimates the causal effect of abortion legalization on adolescent fertility in Uruguay, using official data on legal abortions provided after the 2012 reform. We employed a difference-in-differences strategy, classifying states by whether they are responsive or unresponsive to the reform. The results suggest that abortion reform had a negative impact on the adolescent birth rate by 2.5 to 2.8 births per thousand adolescents aged 15–19 (4% decrease from the pre-intervention average). Additionally, we exploited variation in reform implementation intensity through the estimation of fixed-effect linear regression models and found consistent results. Our findings are robust to controlling for a concurrent large-scale program of contraceptive implants. We conclude that legislation aimed at enhancing rights and reducing avoidable deaths and complications from unsafe abortions may also have spillover effects that help reduce adolescent fertility.
format Articulo
Documento de trabajo
author Cabella, Wanda
Velázquez Battistessa, Cecilia
author_facet Cabella, Wanda
Velázquez Battistessa, Cecilia
author_sort Cabella, Wanda
title Abortion legalization in Uruguay: effects on adolescent fertility
title_short Abortion legalization in Uruguay: effects on adolescent fertility
title_full Abortion legalization in Uruguay: effects on adolescent fertility
title_fullStr Abortion legalization in Uruguay: effects on adolescent fertility
title_full_unstemmed Abortion legalization in Uruguay: effects on adolescent fertility
title_sort abortion legalization in uruguay: effects on adolescent fertility
publishDate 2022
url http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/137471
https://www.cedlas.econo.unlp.edu.ar/wp/wp-content/uploads/doc_cedlas298.pdf?dl=0
work_keys_str_mv AT cabellawanda abortionlegalizationinuruguayeffectsonadolescentfertility
AT velazquezbattistessacecilia abortionlegalizationinuruguayeffectsonadolescentfertility
bdutipo_str Repositorios
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