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IZA Discussion Paper No. 18852
August 2026
The Fertility Reduction Effects of the Colorado Family Planning Initiative by Age and Parity
James Flynn, Amanda Stevenson, Sara Yeatman, Katie R. Genadek, Jane Menken, Stefanie Mollborn, Leslie Root

We use birth records from the National Vital Statistics System to document the full age and parity fertility effects of the Colorado Family Planning Initiative (CFPI). Prior work has demonstrated effects on fertility at ages 15-29. We estimate the fertility effect of the CFPI for all age groups (15-44) and for first and non-first births using the synthetic control method. We find large and significant reductions in birth rates for 15-24-year-olds that line up with other studies, but we find important heterogeneity across parity. For teenagers, we find reductions in first birth rates of 9%, but larger reductions in non-first birth rates of 17-25%. We also find reductions in overall fertility for 20-24 and 25-29-year-olds, but these are entirely driven by reductions of 5-9% in non-first births. For 30-39-year-olds, we find small but significant reductions in fertility of 3-7% across parity levels, and we find a 6% reduction in fertility for 40-44-year-olds. We also conduct inference using synthetic difference-in-differences (SDID) and placebo-based methods. When we do this, our estimates are similar, though confidence intervals are wider, with specifications on older age groups no longer significant.

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