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The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime
John J. Donohue III Yale Law School; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Steven D. Levitt University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); American Bar Foundation Quarterly Journal of Economics Abstract: We offer evidence that legalized abortion has contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. Crime began to fall roughly 18 years after abortion legalization. The 5 states that allowed abortion in 1970 experienced declines earlier than the rest of the nation, which legalized in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. States with high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s experienced greater crime reductions in the 1990s. In high abortion states, only arrests of those born after abortion legalization fall relative to low abortion states. Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime.
JEL Classifications: J11, J13 Accepted Paper SeriesDate posted: August 12, 1999 ; Last revised: May 01, 2001Suggested CitationContact Information
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