Abortion Ban and the Next Generation’s Family Formation Decisions: Evidence from Romania

TL;DR

This study explores how an abortion ban in Romania affected the family formation decisions of the next generation, finding that women, especially those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, delayed marriage and leaving home.

Contribution

The study provides novel evidence that abortion restrictions can have long-term effects on family formation patterns across generations.

Findings

Women born under the abortion ban left home later and married later compared to those born before the ban.

The postponement effect was stronger for women from lower parental socioeconomic status.

Men born after the ban showed no significant changes in family formation outcomes except for higher marriage likelihood among those with higher parental SES.

Abstract

This study examines how the introduction of an abortion ban can shape the next generation’s family formation trajectories, and whether the influence of the ban varies by gender and parental socioeconomic status (SES). Focusing on Romania’s abortion ban period under the Ceaușescu regime, we investigate changes in the probability of being married, the age at leaving the parental home and at first marriage, and spousal age characteristics. Using two complementary datasets, the 2011 Romanian census and the 2005 Generations and Gender Survey, and employing a regression discontinuity design, we find that compared to their counterparts born before the abortion ban, women born under the ban regime left their parental home later, formed their first marriage later, and had a lower probability of being married. This postponement effect was mainly driven by women with lower parental SES. Conversely, we do not observe significant changes in men’s family formation outcomes, except for a higher likelihood of marriage among men with higher parental SES who were born after the ban. The spousal age difference was smaller for both women and men born during the abortion ban. Findings show that abortion restrictions can have lasting effects not only on the individuals who are directly affected by them, but also on the next generation’s family formation trajectories.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10680-026-09768-8.

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