The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and

The Power of the Pill : Oral Contraceptives and Women 's Career and Marriage Decisions

Abstract

The year 1970 witnessed an increasing number of graduate women entering professional courses and their enhanced age levels at first marriage Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F .Katz in their study entitled The Power of the Pill : Oral Contraceptives and Women 's Career and Marriage Decisions ' under the auspices of Harvard University and National Bureau of Economic Research examine the relationship between the above said developments and the popular consumption of birth control pills by young

, unmarried college graduate women . In 1937 , it was found that progesterone prevented ovulation and ultimately leading to the FDA approval of birth control medicine in 1960 as an oral contraceptive for women backed by generous funding of the related projects by the heiress Katherine Dexter McCormick in 1954 . Though the pill containing `norethynodrel ' was approved by the FDA in 1960 itself , it began to be consumed more only after majority age was reduced in many states in late 1960s . The authors seek to prove the power of the pill in lowering the costs of women 's prolonged professional education and raising their marital age levels significantly . As a result , percentage of women in law students increased from 10 percent in 1970 to 36 percent in 1980 . 50 of women born in 1950 married at the age of 23 , while 30 of them born in 1957 married at the same age . Women did not have to observe abstinence any longer nor undergo early pregnancy due to unprotected sex . Besides , the contraceptive pill had the effect of reducing the marriage market cost . The authors in their empirical studies based their findings on analysis of age at first marriage and career changes due to legal change of majority age for women in many states . They also explore why distribution of the pill to single women did not immediately increase after the legal changes in their favor . The methology adopted for the study is the empirical analysis by using cross section data of diffusion of the pills in 1971 among young and unmarried women . They have given their findings under the broad headings of `The Pill and Single Women ' Frameworks to Understand the Effect of the Pill on Marriage and Career , `Evidence for the Power of the Pill , `The case for the Power of Pill , and `Alternative Explanations . The pill first became popular among married women in the U .S . and by 1965 , 41 of women below 30 years were on this contraception pill . Just when its use peaked among the married women in 1967 , single women started using it . The delay in its use by the latter group was because of mandatory parental consent for use by single women of less than majority age . It was only in 1972 , following 26th amendment (1971 , age of majority was reduced to 18 years . The study cites in Table 1 events and land mark decisions from 1875 to 1974 . Starting from 1875 which saw the...