Did Legalized Abortion Lower Crime?
نویسنده
چکیده
In this paper I compare changes in homicide and arrest rates among cohorts born before and after the legalization of abortion to changes in crime in the same years among similar cohorts who were unexposed to legalized abortion. I find little consistent evidence that the legalization of abortion in selected states around 1970, and then in the remaining states following Roe v. Wade, had an effect on recent crime rates. I conclude that the dramatic association as reported in a recent study is most likely the result of unmeasured period effects such as changes in crack cocaine use.
منابع مشابه
The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime
We offer evidence that legalized abortion has contributed signicantly to recent crime reductions. Crime began to fall roughly eighteen years after abortion legalization. The ve states that allowed abortion in 1970 experienced declines earlier than the rest of the nation, which legalized in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. States with high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s experienced greater crime ...
متن کاملFurther Evidence that Legalized Abortion Lowered Crime: A Reply to Joyce
Donohue and Levitt (2001) suggest there is a causal link between legalized abortion and reductions in crime almost two decades later when the cohorts exposed to legalized abortion reach their peak crime years. Joyce (2003) examines crime committed in the period 1985–90 for the cohorts born immediately before and after abortion legalization. He nds little impact of legalized abortion. In this ...
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The association between legalized abortion and crime remains a contentious finding with major implications for social policy. In this paper, I replicate analyses of Donohue and Levitt (2001, 2004, 2006) in which they regress age-specific arrests and homicides on cohort-specific abortion rates. I find that the coefficient on the abortion rate in a regression of age-specific homicide or arrest ra...
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متن کاملLegalized Abortion and the Homicide of Young Children: An Empirical Investigation
Recent research has drawn a link, sometimes a causal link, between the legalization of abortion in the late 1960s and early 1970s and the precipitous decline in crime in the 1990s. Abortion is posited to have reduced the number of potential victims and potential perpetrators, and the potential effect is examined when these individuals would be reaching their high-crime years. We examined a more...
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تاریخ انتشار 2004