So much is being made in the media of the debate over whether contraception should be covered by health insurance, or whether allowing women to access it is a “license to have sex,” potentially breeding generations of sex-having hussies.
What often gets glossed over, forgotten or simply ignored is the total benefit to society presented by access to the birth control pill and similar forms of contraception, but the New York Times has broken down the impact in overall lifetime earnings, and the data is pretty impressive and moving. The paper cites two studies that have been oft-referred to when stumping for pill access, and the numbers make it seem like folly to discount the benefits of affordable and accessible contraception.
The Times notes:
“ A study by Martha J. Bailey, Brad Hershbein and Amalia R. Miller helps assign a dollar value to those tectonic shifts. For instance, they show that young women who won access to the pill in the 1960s ended up earning an 8 percent premium on their hourly wages by age 50…. Such trends have helped narrow the earnings gap between men and women. Indeed, the paper suggests that the pill accounted for 30 percent – 30 percent! – of the convergence of men’s and women’s earnings from 1990 to 2000.”
Another interesting data point noted in the piece is who is helped by pill availability most of all- it seems women with average IQ test scores were most likely to reap the benefits:
“’Almost all of the wage gains accrued to women in the middle of the IQ distribution,’ the paper said. For this group, it said, women with early access to the pill ‘enjoyed greater hourly wages throughout their twenties and the premium grew to a statistically significant 20 percent at ages 30 to 49.’”
When looked at from this perspective, it seems that covering contraception is not an issue we can afford to hinge on the morality of the few. Do you believe the birth control pill and other prescribed methods of pregnancy prevention should be covered by insurance?
