Question

How do Goldin and Katz and Bailey et al. ("The Quiet Revolution" "Career and Marriage in the Age of the Pill" and "The Opt-In Revolution") identify the causal effect of access to oral contraceptives on wages, labor supply and human capital acquisition? (Be as specific as you can.) How does access to oral contraceptives impact wages at young ages? Older ages? What mechanism explains those results?

Answer 1

Consumption of oral contraceptives from 1960-1970 have seen women employees earning more than 8% from non consuming women because pill effect by coincidence or causal effect has seen higher growth in brain development and anti ageing and also end of baby boomers. The pill causes higher productivity growth and also expectancy of higher control on child bearing and hence invested more in human capital and their careerpaths.

The underlying cause is better mental ability and control and rationalised thinking which leads to higher wages and higher career investment.