The pharmacist will see you now: Pharmacist prescribed contraceptives and fertility rates

Abstract

Policies that increase contraceptive access for young women and their partners are a potentially low-cost way of reducing unintended pregnancies and improving later life outcomes. Several states have recently implemented laws that allow pharmacists to prescribe contraceptives to women without the need to see a physician. We study the effect of these state laws on fertility rates. Using US Natality files for 2014–2020, we employ a difference-in-differences strategy using the 13 states that had enacted a law until the first quarter of 2020 as the treated group, and the 15 policy-implementing states post-2020 quarter 1 as the control group. We find approximately 0.5 fewer births per 1000 women aged 15–49 per quarter occur post law implementation, compared to control states. The effect of the policy appears to be focused among women aged 25–34 and 40–44 and women with a high school education or less.