Posted on 09/30/2020 6:49:53 PM PDT by karpov
Abstract
Since 1977, U.S. states have passed laws steadily raising the age for which a child must ride in a car safety seat. These laws significantly raise the cost of having a third child, as many regular-sized cars cannot fit three child seats in the back. Using census data and state-year variation in laws, we estimate that when women have two children of ages requiring mandated car seats, they have a lower annual probability of giving birth by 0.73 percentage points. Consistent with a causal channel, this effect is limited to third child births, is concentrated in households with access to a car, and is larger when a male is present (when both front seats are likely to be occupied). We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017. Simultaneously, they led to a permanent reduction of approximately 8,000 births in the same year, and 145,000 fewer births since 1980, with 90% of this decline being since 2000.
Keywords: Family Formation, Fertility, Car Seats, Safety Regulations
JEL Classification: J13, J18, R41
(Excerpt) Read more at privpapers.ssrn.com ...
I also managed to get seven teenage boys and their gear into the back of my old Dodge Caravan in the early 1990s for a trip to the beach.
Had to drive carefully as the back of the vehicle would bottom out due to the weight if we hit any potholes.
We all really need to internalize this about the Left.
They lay awake in bed all night, every night, thinking of new cute little angles to game the system and get their way.
Yeah, because that was a MINIvan, after cars had all been downsized.
I fit 10 adult cousins in our Lincoln Town Car of the ‘70s in Baltimore getting them to our house for Thanksgiving. Granted the lighter ladies sat on their brothers but still. Or we hold each put them in the capacious trunk.
There was no bottoming out.
It was so free. We went in the bed of my dad’s P/U in the ‘80s, as we had in uncles in the ‘70s. I rode bikes with no safety NAZI stuff all over our town trails and traipsed through woods and streams unencumbered.
Mr Kitty had the “Merc.” Co-owned by five high school boys who each chipped $20 to purchase it.
From what he tells me, they could sneak 6 into the drive-in by putting them in the trunk.
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