Do US TRAP Laws Trap Women Into Bad Jobs?

Abstract

This study explores the impact of women’s access to reproductive healthcare on labor market opportunities in the US. Previous research finds that access to the contraception pill delayed age at first birth and increased access to a university degree, labor force participation, and wages for women. This study examines how access to contraceptives and abortions impacts job mobility. If women cannot control family planning or doing so is heavily dependent on staying in one job, it is more difficult to plan for and take risks in their careers. Using data from the Current Population Survey’s Outgoing Rotation Group, this study finds that Targeted Restrictions on Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws increased “job lock.” Women in states with TRAP laws are less likely to move between occupations and into higher-paying occupations. Moreover, public funding for medically necessary abortions increases full-time occupational mobility, and contraceptive insurance coverage increases transitions into paid employment.

KEYWORDS:

• Abortion
• occupational mobility
• job lock
• contraception
• TRAP laws
• labor force participation

JEL Codes:

• I18
• J13
• J62

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank Danielle Corley, Harry Holzer, and Jamila Taylor for their assistance at earlier stages of this research and their invaluable knowledge on reproductive justice.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kate Bahn

Kate Bahn is Director of Labor Market Policy and Economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Her research areas include gender, race, and ethnicity in the labor market, care work, and monopsonistic labor markets. Previously, she was an Economist at the Center for American Progress. Bahn serves as the Executive Vice President and Secretary for the International Association for Feminist Economics. She has published popular economics writing for a variety of publications, including The Guardian, The Nation, Salon, and Newsweek. She received her doctorate in economics from the New School for Social Research and her bachelor's from Hampshire College.

Adriana Kugler

Adriana Kugler is Professor at Georgetown University. She was Chief Economist at the US Department of Labor under the Obama Administration and Vice Provost at Georgetown. She is member of the STEP Board of the National Academies and Chair-Elect of the Business and Economics Section of the American Statistical Association. Her research on the impacts of labor institutions has been published in top Economics journals. She was awarded the 2007 John T. Dunlop Outstanding Scholar Award. She is Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. She earned her PhD from UC Berkeley and her BA from McGill University.

Melissa Holly Mahoney

Melissa Holly Mahoney is Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Her areas of focus are the economics of well-being, gender, labor, and American public K-12 education. Her contributions to the areas of teaching and pedagogy were recognized with the 2018-2019 Award for Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences from UNC Asheville. She earned her doctorate in economics from the New School for Social Research and her bachelor's from Bard College where she studied economics and philosophy.

Annie McGrew

Annie McGrew is a graduate student in economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Before starting graduate school, she worked at the Center for American Progress as a research assistant on the economic policy team. She received her bachelor's degree in economics from Emory University in May 2016.