Abortion Bans and Young Women's Labor Supply: Evidence from the Dobbs Decision

TL;DR

This study finds that the 2022 Dobbs decision and state abortion bans led to a significant immediate increase in young women's labor force participation, indicating a shift towards immediate earnings over long-term human capital development.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on how abortion bans impact young women's labor supply using Difference-in-Differences and Triple-Difference models with recent micro data.

Findings

Young women's labor force participation increased by 6.6 percentage points in ban states.

Employment among young women rose by about 3 percentage points.

School enrollment remained largely unchanged.

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of the 2022 Dobbs decision and subsequent state level abortion bans on the labor supply of young women (ages 18-24). Using monthly CPS micro data from January 2021 to December 2023, I exploit cross state variation in post Dobbs abortion policy and estimate Difference-in-Differences (DiD) and Triple-Difference (DDD) models. In a simple DiD comparing young women in ban versus protected states, labor force participation in ban states rises by 3.6 percentage points, while participation among young men in the same states falls by 2.9 percentage points, suggesting that the female response is unlikely to be driven by stronger local labor demand. The preferred DDD specification with state-by-month and gender interacted fixed effects implies a 6.6 percentage point increase in labor force participation for young women in ban states relative to young men. School enrollment does not change significantly, whereas employment increases by about 3 percentage points. These results suggest that abortion bans are associated with an immediate increase in young women's labor market attachment, potentially shifting their short run focus toward current earnings rather than human capital accumulation.