Effects of Infertility Insurance Mandates on Fertility

Authors

Lucie Schmidt, Williams CollegeFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-1-2007

Publication Title

Journal of Health Economics

Abstract

Infertility currently affects over 6 million individuals in the United States. While most health insurance plans nationwide do not cover infertility diagnoses or treatments, to date 15 states have enacted some form of infertility insurance mandate. In this paper, I use data from the Vital Statistics Detail Natality Data and Census population estimates to examine whether these state-level mandates were successful in increasing fertility rates. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I exploit variation in the enactment of mandates both across states and over time, and identify treatment and control groups that should have been differentially affected by infertility coverage. My results suggest that the mandates significantly increase first birth rates for women over 35, and these results are robust to a number of specification tests.

Keywords

Fertility, Impaired fecundity, Infertility, Insurance mandates

Volume

26

Issue

3

First Page

431

Last Page

446

DOI

10.1016/j.jhealeco.2006.10.012

ISSN

01676296

Comments

Peer reviewed accepted manuscript.

Recommended Citation

Schmidt, Lucie, "Effects of Infertility Insurance Mandates on Fertility" (2007). Economics: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/eco_facpubs/89