Assisted Reproductive Technology and Women’s Choice to Pursue Professional Careers

We examine the impact of assisted reproductive technology on women’s choice to pursue professional careers. We hypothesize that the availability of assisted reproductive technology increases the expected benefits of a professional degree by allowing women to delay childbearing in their 20s and 30s while establishing their careers, thereby reaping greater financial benefit from human capital investment. We exploit the state and time level variation in the enactment of insurance mandates to cover infertility treatments in employer sponsored health plans, as well as cohort variation in women’s age at the time the laws are passed. These insurance mandates dramatically increase access to assisted reproductive technology. Using a triple-difference strategy, we find that a mandate to cover assisted reproductive technology does increase the probability that a woman chooses to invest in a professional degree and to work in a professional career.