Publication:
The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women's Career and Marriage Decisions

Thumbnail Image

Date

2002

Published Version

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

University of Chicago Press
The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you.

Research Projects

Organizational Units

Journal Issue

Citation

Goldin, Claudia and Lawrence F. Katz. 2002. The power of the pill: Oral contraceptives and women's career and marriage decisions. Journal of Political Economy 110(4): 730-770.

Research Data

Abstract

The fraction of U.S. college graduate women entering professional programs increased substantially just after 1970, and the age at first marriage among all U.S. college graduate women began to soar around the same year. We explore the relationship between these two changes and the diffusion of the birth control pill (“the pill”) among young, unmarried college graduate women. Although the pill was approved in 1960 by the Food and Drug Administration and spread rapidly among married women, it did not diffuse among young, single women until the late 1960s after state law changes reduced the age of majority and extended “mature minor” decisions. We present both descriptive time series and formal econometric evidence that exploit cross‐state and cross‐cohort variation in pill availability to young, unmarried women, establishing the “power of the pill” in lowering the costs of long‐duration professional education for women and raising the age at first marriage.

Description

Other Available Sources

Keywords

Terms of Use

This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material (LAA), as set forth at Terms of Service

Endorsement

Review

Supplemented By

Referenced By

Related Stories

Story
The Power of the Pill: Oral… : DASH Story 2013-09-06
For an undergraduate assignment, I was given an article to read that made reference to The Pill and and how it impacted women in the 60's....some of the statements in the piece did not make sense to me, nor were they referenced. I went on a search to find more detailed information and found this article much more informative than any others found on line.
Story
The Power of the Pill: Oral… : DASH Story 2014-04-28
This article helped me to write a paper on the economics of marriage and divorce...thank you for sharing.
Story
The Power of the Pill: Oral… : DASH Story 2014-05-06
Working on a redesign for birth control packaging and I was able to research using this article. thank you!