The Response of Births to Changes in Health Care Costs
Abstract
Data from a randomized controlled trial, The RAND Health Insurance Experiment, provide the opportunity to examine whether an exogenous short-term change in the cost of medical care affects fertility in a cross-section of women. Women randomly assigned to receive free medical care for three to five years had 29 percent more births than women who were assigned to insurance plans requiring cost-sharing for health services. This response to changes in health insurance suggests that loss of insurance coverage during recessions may attenuate the effect of lower time prices in increasing birth rates in economic downturns.
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Families randomly assigned to a fully covered plan with free health services had a 29 percent higher birth rate than the control group.
“Those assigned to a fully covered plan with free health services had a 29 percent higher birth rate”
From Can Policies Stall the Fertility Fall? A Systematic Review of the (Quasi‐) Experimental Literature (2021) · cites this paper as Leibowitz 1990
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- Authors
- Leibowitz, A.
- Corresponding author
- Leibowitz, Arleen
- ORCID
- Leibowitz, Arleen
- Venue
- The Journal of Human Resources
- Publisher
- JSTOR
- Published
- 1990
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 697
- ISSN
- 0022-166X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1513620838
- Cited by
- 30
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 2 · 2014: 2 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Journal of Human Resources (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Healthcare Policy and Management
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Reproductive Health and Contraception
- Keywords
- fertility, births, health care costs, health insurance, cost sharing, RAND Health Insurance Experiment, insurance coverage, economic recession, economic downturn
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