The Supreme Court?s Plan To Overturn Roe Would Turn Back Women?s Economic Gains

The brief describes the findings of causal inference studies conducted since the Roe decision to show the positive economic effects the decision had on women’s lives.“Studies show that in addition to impacting births, abortion legalization has had a significant impact on women’s wages and educational attainment, with impacts most strongly felt by Black women,” the brief states.Black teenage women who had access to abortion services graduated from high school at a rate of 22% to 24% more and attended college by 23% to 27% more than Black teenage women who could not access those services, according to a 1996 research paper by economists Joshua Angrist and William Evans.Follow-up studies found similar gains in women’s educational attainment and professional success.Young women who delayed having a child by one year by having an abortion eventually saw an 11% increase in hourly wages, according to a 2019 study by economist Ali Abboud.Similarly, the probability of graduating from college increased by nearly 20% and the probability of entering a professional field increased by 40% for young women who had an abortion after an unintended pregnancy, according to a 2021 study by economist Kelly Jones.Young women who have an abortion after an unintended pregnancy before the age of 20 increase their earnings later in life by $11,000 to $15,000 per year, according to Jones’ study. Though that finding shows positive improvement for all young women, the economic impact of access to an abortion for young Black women is “striking,” according to Jones’ study.Young Black women who have an abortion after an unintended pregnancy from ages 15 to 23 saw their individual earnings increase by $23,200 to $28,000 per year and their family earnings increase by $48,000 to $52,000 per year.The brief also cites the Turnaway Study, a well-known research paper on the different outcomes of women who were able to access abortion services and those who were turned away based on their arrival to a clinic after the law in their home state banned them from receiving an abortion.