From Prohibition to Choice: The Impact of Abortion Legalization on Fertility and Child Investments in Nepal (with Ajinkya Keskar)

We study whether expanding reproductive autonomy changes fertility and early-life investments in a son-preferring society, in the context of Nepal’s 2002 abortion legalization. Using a triple-difference-in-differences design comparing girls and boys across firstborn-sex families before and after the reform, we find that the abortion legalization substantially reduced son-biased fertility stopping: the sibship-size gap between firstborn-girl and firstborn-boy families fell by nearly three-quarters. In terms of investments, daughters in firstborn-girl families gained about two months of breastfeeding, closing most of the pre-existing deficit, also consistent with reduced reliance on breastfeeding as a birth spacing tool. Effects on vaccination and under-five survival were limited, aligning with these inputs being less tied to fertility timing. Abortion access, therefore, relaxed fertility constraints and shifted investments on the birth spacing sensitive margin.