Access to pill boosts women's earnings - study

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/29/10905591-access-to-pill-boosts-womens-earnings-study

By Linda Carroll, msnbc.com contributor March 29, 2012

A new study may add tinder to the debate over whether the federal government ought to require health insurance plans to pay for contraception. New research shows that access to birth control pills over the past 50 years has translated into higher pay and better careers for women.

After scrutinizing data from a multidecade survey, University of Michigan researchers determined that women who had access to birth control pills when they were in their late teens and early 20s tended to be better educated and better paid 20 years later compared to women who couldn’t get oral contraceptives. Women who had early access to the pill were making 8 percent more than those who didn’t.

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So the researchers were able to compare the career trajectories and salaries of women who could get the pill at 18 versus those who had to wait until they were 21.

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The women who benefited the most from early access to the pill were those who came from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.

“One thing I think is important to point out is that we didn’t see a change in the number of children these women had, but we did see changes in when they decided to have them,” Bailey said. “That slight delay in the birth of their first child translated into some pretty big gains in terms of lifetime earnings.”

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