Cultural Transmission and Contraceptive Use – Evidence from US-Mexico Migration

Abstract

We estimate the impacts of international migration on contraceptive choice of women in Mexico. We find that women belonging to migrant families and having past migration experience have higher propensity to use modern contraceptives. For instance, migrant family women are 75% more likely to use contraceptive pills and 36% more likely to use condoms with their partners than their non-migrant counterparts. We obtain these effects after controlling for traditional economic variables such as income and access. To establish a causal effect, we use historic municipality level migration and return migration as instruments for the current decision to migrate, correcting for the potential self-selection involved in international migration. We argue that these results are robust to different specifications and estimation strategies and are not driven by individual or spatial omitted variables.

Keywords: International Migration, Women, Contraceptive Use, Development

JEL Classification: F22, J13, O15