Do State Infertility Treatment Mandates Affect Divorces?

The technological advancements in assisted reproductive technology (ART) have increased the success of childbearing among women with impaired fertility. Currently, 15 states mandate private health insurers to cover some forms of infertility treatments, thus subsidizing and increasing their use. We evaluate the relationship between accessibility of infertility treatments and marital stability among childless women. Our analysis relies on a triple difference methodology applied to individual level data from the 1989-2013 Current Population Surveys. The results indicate that, although childless women are more likely to be divorced, those aged 25-39 have higher probability of staying in marriage in mandate states. As expected, the effect is larger among childless women in their early 30s and is concentrated among whites. Finally, our empirical strategy passes a falsification test, as we do not find the similar effects on a sub-sample of women with public insurance and those with no insurance.