Essay in Labor and Health

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three essays:

“The Effect of Women's Access to Free Health Care on Breastfeeding Practices: Evidence from Armenia” examines how women's decisions regarding breastfeeding respond to increased maternal access to medical care. Specifically, I examine the effects of the Armenian “For You, Women" program which grants women access to free health care services for a period of one month each year. Employing a differences-in-differences specification, I explore how the prevalence and duration of breastfeeding are affected by the program. I find that access to free women's health care leads to a decline in the likelihood of breastfeeding.

In “Impacts of the Relocation Program on Native American Migration and Fertility," I estimate the historical migratory and fertility effects of the US Relocation Program. Between 1952 and 1973, the US federal government attempted to move Native Americans off reservations and to urban areas under the promises of financial assistance and job training. Using the variation in which cities were targeted by the program, I employ a difference-in-differences strategy and estimate that the Relocation Program significantly increased the Native American population in target cities. I also find evidence that second-generation Native American women living in cities have a substantially lower fertility rate than Native American women living on tribal land. Jointly, these findings indicate that this federal program substantially shifted the spatial distribution of the Native American population in the US throughout the 20th century.

Finally, “Right to Carry Laws and Intimate Partner Homicide," examines to what extend right to carry laws impact intimate partner homicide rates. I employ generalized difference-in-differences, event study, and synthetic control methods specifications to examine the impact of right to carry laws on annual, state-level intimate partner homicide rates. I find no evidence of an impact of right to carry laws on female victim intimate partner homicide rates. While there are some specifications that suggest a decrease in male victim firearm intimate partner homicide rates, these results are limited and fluctuating across model specifications. Overall, the estimates are noisy but suggest little evidence of an impact, highlighting the importance of more formalized sensitivity analysis for testing the robustness of results.