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Mental Health and Abortions among Young Women: Time-Varying Unobserved Heterogeneity, Health Behaviors, and Risky Decisions

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Lena Janys

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).


Abstract

In this paper, we provide causal evidence on abortions and risky health behaviors as determinants of mental health development among young women. Using administrative in- and outpatient records from Sweden, we apply a novel grouped fixed-effects estimator proposed by Bonhomme and Manresa (2015) to allow for time-varying unobserved heterogeneity. We show that the positive association obtained from standard estimators shrinks to zero once we control for {grouped unobserved heterogeneity that varies across ages}. We estimate the group profiles of unobserved heterogeneity, which reflect differences in unobserved risk to be diagnosed with a mental health condition. In addition, we analyze mental health development and risky health behaviors other than unintended pregnancies across groups. Our results suggest that these are determined by the same type of unobserved heterogeneity, which we attribute to the same unobserved process of decision-making. We develop and estimate a theoretical model of risky choices and mental health that is consistent with our empirical results. In the model, mental health disparity across groups is generated by different degrees of self-control problems. Our findings imply that mental health concerns cannot be used to justify restrictive abortion policies.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Janys L, Siflinger B

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Journal of Econometrics

Year: 2024

Volume: 238

Issue: 1

Print publication date: 01/01/2024

Online publication date: 15/11/2023

Acceptance date: 15/08/2023

Date deposited: 24/08/2023

ISSN (print): 0304-4076

ISSN (electronic): 1872-6895

Publisher: Elsevier BV

URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconom.2023.105580

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeconom.2023.105580


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Funding

Funder referenceFunder name
441253219
EXC-2047/1–390685813
EXC-2126/1–390838866
German Research Foundation (DFG)

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