From the Maryland Population Research Center

Mahesh Karra, Columbia University 

Family Planning, Women’s Employment, and Household Labor Supply

Monday, Sep 28, 2026 - 11:15 AM-12:15PM
2208 LeFrak Hall / Zoom 

"We conduct a randomized controlled trial that provides pregnant and postpartum women with comprehensive access to family planning services. We assess the causal impact of the family planning intervention on women’s and households’ labor market outcomes. We find evidence of a 3.1 percentage point (p.p.) increase in employment and a 2.4 p.p. increase in labor force participation, along with a 6.3 percent increase in hours worked, among individuals in intervention households. These results are primarily driven by a 4.8 p.p. increase in women’s employment and a 19.9 percent increase in the number of hours they work. An exploration of potential pathways suggests that increases in employment are associated with reductions in short-term pregnancies among women in the treatment group. Consistent with this finding, our results suggest that the marginal pregnancy that was avoided would have had substantial negative effects on women’s employment."

Mahesh Karra is Associate Professor of Population and Family Health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and Director of the Program on Women’s Empowerment Research (POWER).