Caitlin Myers

Last updated

Caitlin Myers
Education Tulane University
University of Texas at Austin
Children4
Scientific career
FieldsEconomics
Institutions Middlebury College
Website Official website

Caitlin Knowles Myers is the John G. McCullough Professor of Economics and Director of the Middlebury Initiative for Data and Digital Methods at Middlebury College. She is also a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) [1] and a Research Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [2]

Contents

She is known for her research on the impacts of contraception and abortion policies in the United States. [3] In 2021, when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization case, she led an effort to compile the best economic research on the impact of abortion access on women's lives into an amicus brief, which was signed by more than 150 economists. [4]

Life

Myers grew up in rural West Virginia and Georgia and trained as a labor economist, [4] receiving her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2005. [2] Myers was widowed in 2011, when her husband, firefighter Adam Myers, was killed in a car accident. [5] [6] [7]

Research

Myers' research examines issues related to gender, race, fertility and the economy. In recent work, she has studied the impact of contraception and abortion policies. Her research demonstrates that the liberalization of abortion policies in the 1960s and 1970s allowed large numbers of women to delay marriage and motherhood. [8] She also has studied the effects of mandatory waiting periods, [9] parental involvement laws, [10] and driving distances on abortion and birth rates. [11] Her most recent work assesses the effects of the Dobbs decision on American fertility. [12]

Her work on the changing influence of education on women's age at motherhood [13] [14] and the impact of abortion access on birth rates is featured in the media. [15]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Family planning</span> Planning when to have children

Family planning is the consideration of the number of children a person wishes to have, including the choice to have no children, and the age at which they wish to have them. Things that may play a role on family planning decisions include marital situation, career or work considerations, financial situations. If sexually active, family planning may involve the use of contraception and other techniques to control the timing of reproduction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abortion in the United States</span>

In the United States, abortion is a divisive issue in politics and culture wars, though a majority of Americans support access to abortion. Abortion laws vary widely from state to state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abortifacient</span> Chemical substances that can terminate a pregnancy

An abortifacient is a substance that induces abortion. This is a nonspecific term which may refer to any number of substances or medications, ranging from herbs to prescription medications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birth rate</span> Total number of live births per 1,000 divided by time period

Birth rate, also known as natality, is the total number of live human births per 1,000 population for a given period divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registration system for births; population counts from a census, and estimation through specialized demographic techniques. The birth rate is used to calculate population growth. The estimated average population may be taken as the mid-year population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sub-replacement fertility</span> Total fertility rate that (if sustained) leads to each new generation being less populous

Sub-replacement fertility is a total fertility rate (TFR) that leads to each new generation being less populous than the older, previous one in a given area. The United Nations Population Division defines sub-replacement fertility as any rate below approximately 2.1 children born per woman of childbearing age, but the threshold can be as high as 3.4 in some developing countries because of higher mortality rates. Taken globally, the total fertility rate at replacement was 2.33 children per woman in 2003. This can be "translated" as 2 children per woman to replace the parents, plus a "third of a child" to make up for the higher probability of males born and mortality prior to the end of a person's fertile life. In 2020, the global average fertility rate was around 2.4 children born per woman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natalism</span> Belief that promotes human reproduction

Natalism is a policy paradigm or personal value that promotes the reproduction of human life as an important objective of humanity and therefore advocates high birthrate.

Male contraceptives, also known as male birth control, are methods of preventing pregnancy by interrupting the function of sperm. The main forms of male contraception available today are condoms, vasectomy, and withdrawal, which together represented 20% of global contraceptive use in 2019. New forms of male contraception are in clinical and preclinical stages of research and development, but as of 2024, none have reached regulatory approval for widespread use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Labour supply</span>

In mainstream economic theories, the labour supply is the total hours that workers wish to work at a given real wage rate. It is frequently represented graphically by a labour supply curve, which shows hypothetical wage rates plotted vertically and the amount of labour that an individual or group of individuals is willing to supply at that wage rate plotted horizontally. There are three distinct aspects to labor supply or expected hours of work: the fraction of the population who are employed, the average number of hours worked by those that are employed, and the average number of hours worked in the population as a whole.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IZA Institute of Labor Economics</span> German think tank

The IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, until 2016 referred to as the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), is a private, independent economic research institute and academic network focused on the analysis of global labor markets and headquartered in Bonn, Germany.

Long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) are methods of birth control that provide effective contraception for an extended period without requiring user action. They include hormonal and non-hormonal intrauterine devices (IUDs) and subdermal hormonal contraceptive implants. They are the most effective reversible methods of contraception because their efficacy is not reliant on patient compliance. The failure rates of IUDs and implants is less than 1% per year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birth control</span> Method of preventing human pregnancy

Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unintended pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth control only became available in the 20th century. Planning, making available, and using human birth control is called family planning. Some cultures limit or discourage access to birth control because they consider it to be morally, religiously, or politically undesirable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Family planning in India</span>

Family planning in India is based on efforts largely sponsored by the Indian government. From 1965 to 2009, contraceptive usage has more than tripled and the fertility rate has more than halved, but the national fertility rate in absolute numbers remains high, causing concern for long-term population growth. India adds up to 1,000,000 people to its population every 20 days. Extensive family planning has become a priority in an effort to curb the projected population of two billion by the end of the twenty-first century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prevalence of birth control</span> Overview article

Globally approximately 45% of those who are married and able to have children use contraception. As of 2007, IUDs were used by about 17% of women of child bearing age in developing countries and 9% in developed countries or more than 180 million women worldwide. Avoiding sex when fertile is used by about 3.6% of women of childbearing age, with usage as high as 20% in areas of South America. As of 2005, 12% of couples are using a male form of contraception with rates of up to 30% in the developed world.

For years, the census data in China has recorded a significant imbalance in the sex ratio toward the male population, meaning there are fewer women than men. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the missing women or missing girls of China. China's official census report from 2000 shows that there were 117 boys for every 100 girls. The sex imbalance in some rural areas is even higher, at 130 boys to 100 girls, compared to a global average of 105 or 106 boys to 100 girls.

Abortion in Uganda is illegal unless performed by a licensed medical doctor in a situation where the woman's life is deemed to be at risk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Autor</span> American economist

David H. Autor is an American economist, public policy scholar, and professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he also acts as co-director of the School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative. Although Autor has contributed to a variety of fields in economics his research generally focuses on topics from labor economics.

Adriana Lleras-Muney is a Colombian-American economist. She is currently a professor in the Department of Economics at UCLA. She was appointed as Associate Editor for the Journal of Health Economics in 2014, and she was elected as one of the six members of the American Economic Association Executive committee in 2018. Her research focuses on socio-economic status and health with a particular emphasis on education, income, and economic development. In 2017, she was received the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers from President Obama.

Jeanne Lafortune is a Canadian economist who currently works as an Full Professor in Economics and Director of Research at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. She is also a researcher at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, which is a global research center that aims to reduce poverty and improve life quality of people in the Caribbean and Latin America. Lafortune holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her research interests focus on three main fields, including economic history, family and development economics.

Heather Royer is an American economist who is a Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. She has been an Associate Editor of The Journal of Human Resources, the Journal of Health Economics, and the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, and will become coeditor of the AEA Journal of Economic Policy in September 2021.

Scott Cunningham is a professor of economics at Baylor University, Research Fellow of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty, and Research Affiliate of the Computational Justice Lab.

References

  1. "Caitlin Knowles Myers | NBER - National Bureau of Economic Research". www.nber.org. Retrieved August 13, 2024.
  2. 1 2 "Caitlin Knowles Myers | IZA - Institute of Labor Economics". www.iza.org. Retrieved July 26, 2019.
  3. Bui, Quoctrung; Miller, Claire Cain (August 4, 2018). "The Age That Women Have Babies: How a Gap Divides America". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved July 26, 2019.
  4. 1 2 Brouwer, Derek. "SCOTUS Doesn't Know How Abortion Rights Affect Women, Alito Wrote. A Midd Prof Says Otherwise". Seven Days. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
  5. Davis, Erin (March 21, 2017). "Episode 5: All of Our Strength". middcast.middcreate.net. Retrieved July 26, 2019.
  6. "Guest Post – Meet the Parent V". MiniBury. July 2, 2014. Retrieved July 26, 2019.
  7. Burnside, Vanessa Sorrell. "Vermont man killed in head-on collision here". The Randolph Leader. Retrieved July 26, 2019.
  8. Myers 2017.
  9. Myers 2021.
  10. Myers 2020.
  11. Lindo et al., 2020; Myers, 2024.
  12. Myers 2024; Dench et al., 2024.
  13. "This Is the Biggest Factor in Determining the Age Women Have Kids". Fortune. Retrieved July 26, 2019.
  14. "The American Family - Older And Smaller". Innovation Hub | WGBH.org Blogs. Retrieved July 26, 2019.
  15. Bui, Quoctrung; Miller, Claire Cain; Sanger-Katz, Margot (July 18, 2019). "Where Roe v. Wade Has the Biggest Effect". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved July 26, 2019.