# Life course impacts of reduced access to contraception

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO · 2024 · $681,884

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Subsidies for contraception and even the right to use contraception are often justified on the basis of their
benefits to women’s socioeconomic lives. While the benefits of expanding contraceptive access have been
documented, reductions in access are now under consideration. Because reductions in access operate
differently than expansions, they will not simply reverse the effects of expansions. Therefore, it is critical to
understand how such reductions impact women’s social and economic outcomes.
This project uses newly-developed data and one of the earliest and largest reductions in access to
contraception to generate the first estimates of reduced contraceptive access in the US.
The project will estimate the causal impact of reduced access to contraception using a massive policy
experiment in Texas. In 2011, Texas decreased its grant-based contraceptive funding program by 2/3 and
deprioritized dedicated family planning providers. These actions caused clinic closures, reduced access to the
most effective methods, and were associated with increases in teen fertility.
In partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau, the project will (Aim 1A) expand an individual-level longitudinal
dataset, Reproduction in People’s Lives (RIPL), recording women’s fertility and human capital formation for
nearly all reproductive-age U.S. women 2000-2026. RIPL links restricted individual-level microdata for the
entire United States from the Census Numident, Master Address File–Auxiliary Reference File, three decennial
Censuses, individual IRS tax filings, the Census Household Composition Key, and the 2005-2026 American
Community Survey. The project will also (Aim 1B) integrate original survey-based and administrative clinic-
level data on the spatial intensity of Texas reductions in contraceptive access into RIPL. And importantly, the
project will (Aim 1C) yield a modular version of RIPL, so researchers on Census Bureau-approved projects
can use our documented code to construct components of RIPL for replication, extension, and their own use.
Changes in life course outcomes as Texans experienced reductions in access contraception will be compared
to changes in comparison states using a difference-in-differences approach. In this way the project will (Aim 2)
assess the impact of reductions in access to contraception on women’s fertility over their life course. Similarly,
the project will (Aim 3) assess the impact of reductions in access to contraception on women’s economic
outcomes and human capital accumulation. For each outcome, whether impacts vary by age at exposure,
family of origin socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity, as well as whether fertility mediates the impact of
reduced access (Aim 4) on women’s socioeconomic lives will be assessed.
Project findings will inform ongoing debates over the causal effects of access to contraception and fertility
timing on socioeconomic outcomes. The data and methods developed may also be used by researchers on...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10973000
- **Project number:** 1R01HD116105-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
- **Principal Investigator:** Amanda Jean Stevenson
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $681,884
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-16 → 2029-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10973000

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10973000, Life course impacts of reduced access to contraception (1R01HD116105-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10973000. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*