Access to pill boosts women's earnings - study

Researchers at the University of Michigan determined that women who had access to oral contraception — and thus exercised more autonomy over their birth control — tended to be better educated and better paid by about 8 percent 20 years later than women who couldn't get access to the pill. According to Martha J. Bailey, the study's lead author, "Arguably the pill had some pretty big benefits for these women."

And that is good for ALL middle class Americans, because almost all of us depend on two incomes to keep afloat now, as cost of goods rises amid global competition for resources.

Women without children earn more. Does this suprise you?

Not at all. The corollary point is that it is specifically the pill that makes the difference. The second corollary is that FAMILIES with control over reproductive decisions are more prosperous. Women aren't a separate species. Prosperous women means prosperous humans.

Quote: Mosca

Women aren't a separate species.

It just seems that way most of the time.

Humans without children and families without children tend to make more money. It's going to stay that way, whether it's pills, rubbers, vas, tubes, what have you.

The reverse is also true - families with the most children are usually the poorest. Children are just plain bad for prosperity. This is a well-studied and widely recognized fact.

It holds not only on personal level, but also on international. TFR is approximately equal to the average number of children per family. HDI is human development index, summarizing wealth, life expectancy and a few other indicators.



It can be dressed up in a number of agendas. If variable C correlates with A, variable D correlates with B, and there is a strong correlation between A and B, it is highly probable that C will correlate with D in the same way. This can be used to infer just about any causation effect.

Ugh, correlation versus causation strikes again! I'm a firm supporter of mandating birth control coverage but I just can't buy this story. I'd love the read the paper but it's behind a pay-wall. Here's the summary though:

Quote:

Using state-by-birth-cohort variation in legal access to contraception, we show that younger access to the Pill conferred an 8-percent hourly wage premium by age fifty. Our estimates imply that the Pill can account for 10 percent of the convergence of the gender gap in the 1980s and 30 percent in the 1990s.

So they found that pill caused an 8% increase? To come to that conclusion they looked at two entirely different studies: one regarding health, one regarding labor. They compared states where the pill was available at 18 versus those at 21. That's it? Really?

The author states, "Arguably the pill had some pretty big benefits for these women..." Ok, I'll argue. How did they control for other contributing factors that differ greatly between states? I'll argue that a state that offers birth control at 18 would tend to be more of a progressive state in many ways than one where it was offered at 21. I'm going to take a wild guess that even before the pill women made more in California than they did in Mississippi.

After ages in HR I feel bad for women who are pregnant and have women bosses. Especially if it is an older woman.