Crime, teenage abortion, and unwantedness

This article disaggregates Donohue and Levitt’s (DL’s) national panel-data models to the state level and shows that high concentrations of teenage abortions in a handful of states drive all of DL’s results in their 2001, 2004, and 2008 articles on crime and abortion. These findings agree with previo...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Shoesmith, Gary L. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2017
In: Crime & delinquency
Year: 2017, Volume: 63, Issue: 11, Pages: 1458-1490
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Keywords:
Crime
Teenage abortion
Hypergeometric distributions
Panel-data estimation
Disaggregation
Teenager Schwangerschaft
Abtreibung
Straftat
Schwangerschaftsabbruch
Description
Summary:This article disaggregates Donohue and Levitt’s (DL’s) national panel-data models to the state level and shows that high concentrations of teenage abortions in a handful of states drive all of DL’s results in their 2001, 2004, and 2008 articles on crime and abortion. These findings agree with previous research showing teenage motherhood is a major maternal crime factor, whereas unwanted pregnancy is an insignificant factor. Teenage abortions accounted for more than 30% of U.S. abortions in the 1970s, but only 16% to 18% since 2001, which suggests DL’s panel-data models of crime/arrests and abortion were outdated when published. The results point to a broad range of future research involving teenage behavior. A specific means is proposed to reconcile DL with previous articles finding no relationship between crime and abortion.
ISSN:1552-387X
DOI:10.1177/0011128715615882