Women living in states with fewer abortion restrictions as teens and girls who received an abortion in adolescence were more likely to have higher incomes, graduate college and report less financial insecurity compared to women who live in areas with more restrictive abortion laws and teens who became mothers, two new studies show.

The studies use two methods to analyze data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, initially collected in 1994. Bethany Everett, associate professor in the Sociology Department at the University of Utah and lead researcher, said using the data set helped the researchers overcome some of the difficulties in studying abortion.

“Abortion research is really tricky because people don’t like to tell other people that they’ve had abortions, even on anonymous surveys,” said Everett. She is also an adjunct professor in the Division of Family Planning at the U’s School of Medicine.

Economic and Educational Outcomes Related to Abortion Access

The first study compared teenagers living in areas with strict abortion laws to those who do not. It compared their economic and educational outcomes up to 24 years later.

Women in states with the fewest abortion restrictions were 11% more likely to finish high school. They were also 8% more likely to graduate from college than those living in states with the most restrictive abortion laws, the researchers found.

The authors looked at four areas of abortion laws for stringency. They include whether the state the respondents lived in allowed Medicaid to pay for abortions in all circumstances or only in instances of rape or incest, or if the mother’s life is in danger. They also looked at whether the state required parental consent for a minor to get an abortion, if the state required mandatory waiting periods and if the respondent lived in a county with an abortion provider.

“I think one of the great ironies of abortion policies is that the states that have the most abortion restrictions also have the lowest levels of support for families,” Everett said. “So we wanted to try to make sure that we were adjusting for some of those other policy indicators and the economic climate of the state … and we still found this really robust relationship between abortion policy and women’s socioeconomic status.”

 Access to Abortion and Experiences in Motherhood

The second analysis compared the outcomes of adolescents who had a child and those who had an abortion to avoid becoming teen mothers from similar backgrounds. Teen mothers were more likely to be evicted and experience debt and food insecurity later in life, the study found.

Teens who had an abortion were 11% more likely to finish high school and 15% more likely to graduate from college. They were also more likely to make roughly $5,000 more a year on average.

“Because our data is looking at adolescent women, it really underscores how important it is to provide abortion access to adolescent women, but also how important it is, especially because abortion access is becoming so restricted in so much of the U.S. … to provide social supports for families,” said Catherine Taylor, associate professor of sociology at University of California, Santa Barbara, and co-author of the study.

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, which guaranteed women a right to an abortion on the federal level for nearly 50 years. Since then, 13 states have banned abortions. Utah allows abortion until 18 weeks as its trigger ban law remains held up in courts.

In the U.S., nearly 1 in 4 women get an abortion in their lifetime. Roughly 73% of women cite economic concerns as their reason for getting an abortion when surveyed.

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@GiovanniRadtke