FINAL - Reproductive Rights Flashcards
(17 cards)
What are reproductive rights?
Ability to decide whether and when to have children
Being able to make decisions about one’s own body
Informed opinion about the range of contraceptive options
Have access to family planning resources
Have access to sexual and reproductive health services
Processes and policies related to fertility, reproduction and family planning
Why do reproductive rights matter economically?
- They affect women’s health and ability to work:
- Not having access to healthcare or rights over one’s own body, it can lead to stress, physical illness, and death
- Can stop women from working or going to school, reducing economic opportunities - Deciding whether and when to have children is central to woman’s well-being and long-term economic outcomes
- Implications on continuing education + joining the workforce - Having children has a lot of impact on women’s labour/employment outcomes
- Ex. motherhood penalty → mothers earn less than childless women of similar characteristics
- Mother’s earnings → decrease by 49% the year of birth, with a penalty at 34.3% 10 years after; also reduces employment
- Larger negative impacts of parenthood for women who had multiple children or those with a lower education level - Social reproductive perspective:
- Institutions and economic systems historically used women’s bodies as a way to control population growth and or direct fertility policies that are functional to the system → critical from a social reproduction perspective
- Why are sexual and reproductive rights essential for gender equality?
Since women have to bear the full responsibility for pregnancy and childbearing, they face economic disadvantages compared to men
Having rights over reproduction allows women to plan their education, careers, and futures
Abortion rights show how unequal the world is → in some countries ,women can legally access abortion but in others it is banned → banned abortion forces women to carry unwanted pregnancies, which can cause financial hardship, poor health, and limit their ability to take care of themselves or their families
*Why is reproductive health particularly critical for disadvantaged and racialized women?
They face additional economic barriers imposed by structural racism, such as longstanding and widespread occupational segregation → impacts access to higher paying jobs
Evidence has shown that access to abortion increases postsecondary attainment especially among black women, who had much larger decreases in teen fertility than white women → likely related to black women’s lower access to contraception at the time, as is true today
Racialized women may experience certain cultural aspects that more deeply stigmatize abortion access and limit access to contraceptives
What does “missing women” refer to?
The gender bias in morality → prenatal sex selection and selective abortion/premature death due to male preference
Estimated around 100 million have gone “missing” due to unequal access to resources and controlling births
Ex. one-child policy in China → led to fewer girls being born because of preference for boy child
What are the positive impacts of abortion access?
- Reducing teen motherhood and teen marriage
- Increased the probability that women attend college and enter professional occupations
- Increase labour market participation for young women
- Improved outcome for children → less poverty and receipt of public assistance during childhood due to a reduction in living with single parents
> Children also more likely to graduate college and less likely to be single parents of receive public assistance as adults
How has the pill empowered women and changed their economic and social lives?
*educational attainment, career choices, and timing of marriage and childbirth (beneficial not just to women but to the economy at large)
- Delayed marriage:
- Delayed marriage without fear of unplanned pregnancy
- Increased age of first marriage, giving them more time to focus on education, build careers, and make better-informed relationships decisions - Educational Attainment:
- More enrollment in universities, including professional programs
- Reduced the risk that investments in schooling would be interrupted by unexpected motherhood - Labour Market Participation:
- Ability to plan their careers more like men
- Larger and more sustained increase in female LFP, especially in high-skill, high-paying jobs
Explain some of the conflicting views/debates around reproductive rights?
These issues are very debated, especially in patriarchal societies where you have men controlling women
Women interviewed in Turkey / common in all patriarchal societies :
- They lack access to information about their health, fertility, or abortion rights → creates barriers to making informed decisions about their own bodies
- Limited access in hospitals → saying they need to have spousal consent before abortions
- Stigma and discrimination
- Misinformation/judgement from health workers → misleading women (maybe even telling them they don’t provide abortions)
- Influence of conservative religious views
- Pronatalist policies → government wanting to increase population and fertility
What are the consequences of limited reproductive control for women?
(Women face challenges when they cannot make independent choices about having children or accessing abortion
Patriarchy influences decisions and limits freedom - restrict their ability to decide for themselves
Women want freedom and flexibility to make the best decisions for themselves)
Less reproductive rights = higher rates of poverty and more single parents needing public assistance
What is Canadian medicare?
Single-payer system with first-dollar coverage - no user fees, co-payments, or deductibles for physician and hospital services
Commitment to healthcare as a social good
Promote equality of access, particularly for lower-income groups
What are the differences in how men and women use health services in Canada?
Women (especially during reproductive years), use more healthcare services than men
Men are low or catastrophic users (trauma, late-life illness)
The current medicare system transfers resources to women of reproductive age effectively functioning as a social wage
Women benefit through free or low-cost services that support their health and caregiving roles
Canada shows how universal coverage sustains gender equity and reproductive rights
What is fertility?
The number of children born to a woman or a population
Ability to conceive women
Economists study fertility behaviour to understand population growth, labour supply, and human capital investment
Why does fertility tend to fall with rising income? (fertility-income puzzle)
- In poor societies, without social security system, they may provide old age support
- Adults may want to have children as useful productive assets, especially for agricultural societies as they provide useful labour
Main reasons:
Quality vs. Quantity:
- Children provide utility, and they are a durable asset that provides many years worth of utility → utility is derived from the services that these assets yield → adults get utility from child services provided by their children
- Parents face limited resources → they must decide how many children to have and how much to invest in each child
- As income rises and societies modernize, parents shift from having more children (quantity) to investing more per child (quality)
Rising cost of time and fertility decline:
- As societies become wealthier, people’s time becomes more valuable and raising children becomes more costly in time → higher opportunity cost of time
- The time price of each additional child increases → large families becomes less practical → the time tradeoff is too expensive
- Children require a lot of time → this burden often falls on mothers → in higher income societies women’s education and careers improve, so the cost of interrupting women’s work becomes higher
What are the determinants of fertility behaviour?
- Preferences for children
- Desiring children for personal/emotional fulfillment, social and cultural reasons, or economic purposes (especially in low-income societies) - Children as Economic Assets
- Especially in agricultural or traditional societies:
- Provide labour on family farms or businesses
- Supporting parents in old age in the absence of pension systems - Rising Cost of Childcare:
- Higher income societies see:
- Increased cost of childcare, education, and healthcare
- Higher opportunity cost of time, especially for women
What is sexual harassment and violence?
It is not just a personal issue → it has an impact on our economy, healthcare, and communities
Includes unwanted sexual advances, assault, and systemic harassment in workplaces, homes, and public spaces
Violence is a form of gendered power and has serious economic consequences
- Why should economists care about sexual harassment?
Sexual harassment and violence has economic costs for individuals:
- Loss of income and job opportunities → most time the victim ends up leaving the job or is denied promotions
- Reduced lifetime earnings
- Mental health impacts affecting productivity
Forced career shifts or exist from male-dominated sector
Direct and Indirect Costs to Businesses that drain the economy
- Legal costs: lawsuits and settlements can cost companies millions
- Hidden costs like low employee morale, employee turnover, absenteeism, or reduced productivity
Costs to women’s careers and economic status that contribute to the gender wage gap and limits women’s economic mobility
- Pushed out of certain jobs or industries
- Forced to accept lower-paying roles
- Passed over for promotions or opportunities
Companies with high levels of sexual harassment perform worse economically and suffer from reputational damage
- Firms with safer, more respectful environments tend to do better overall
Long Term economic effects on victims
- Women who have been harassed may experience lower lifetime earnings, reduced confidence in negotiating wages or seeking promotions, long-term financial insecurity
- The emotional toll also affects their mental health and career stability, which as ripple effects on families and communities
- What are some of the wage effects of workplace risk of sexual harassment?
Women who have been harassed may experience lower lifetime earnings, reduced confidence in negotiating wages or seeking promotions, long-term financial insecurity
The emotional toll also affects their mental health and career stability, which as ripple effects on families and communities
