Bilge Erten’s Research on Abortion Restrictions and Intimate Partner Violence Published

Associate Professor Bilge Erten’s research has been published by the Journal of Health Economics. The study, co-authored with Dhaval Dave, Christine Durrance, Yang Wang, and Barbara L. Wolfe, examines the link between abortion restrictions and intimate partner violence, revealing significant findings about the real-world impact of abortion bans.

Abstract: In overturning Roe v. Wade and triggering laws in many states that ban or severely re- strict abortion, the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 Dobbs decision dramatically altered the landscape of reproductive health in the U.S. Prior research has highlighted the far-reaching impact of abortion restrictions for women and families, which extend beyond their proximate effects on abortions, births, and fertility. We provide some of the first causal evidence on how abortion restrictions in the post-Dobbs era have impacted women’s risk of exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV). IPV is the most common form of violence experienced by women, and changes in access to abortion may generate unintended effects on various inputs (economic resources, stress, intra-household bargaining) that could affect relationship dynamics and raise the risk of IPV. Leveraging information on IPV incidents reported to law enforcement from 2017-2023 combined with post-Dobbs changes in county-level travel distance to abortion fa- cilities, analyses are based on a generalized difference-in-differences approach. We find that abortion restrictions – alternately measured by the increase in travel distance and by the pres- ence of a near-total ban – significantly increased the rate of IPV for reproductive-age women in treated counties by about seven to 10 percent. These estimates imply at least 9,000 additional incidents of IPV among women in the treated “trigger ban” states, which is predicted to add over $1.24 billion in social costs.

Abortion Restrictions and Intimate Partner Violence in the Dobbs Era, by Dhaval Dave, Christine Piette Durrance, Bilge Erten, Yang Wang, Barbara Wolfe, Journal of Health Economics, 2025,103074