Long Acting Reversible Contraceptive (LARC) Use among Young Women:
Is Early Initiation Linked to Better Socioeconomic Outcomes?
Karen Guzzo1
1Bowling Green State University

In attempts to reduce early, rapid repeat, and unintended fertility, a growing number of family planning efforts are promoting long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) among women in their teens and early twenties. Evidence suggests that LARC use is effective in reducing such births, but it is less clear whether these programs can achieve an implicit goal: better socioeconomic outcomes. Those at risk of early and unintended childbearing are often disadvantaged; removing the risk of such births – especially higher-order births – does little to alter women’s underlying conditions and thus may have a limited effect on outcomes. In the proposed project, I will examine whether early LARC use is associated with higher educational attainment and higher household income-to-poverty ratios with the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 and using marginal structural models with inverse probability of treatment weights to account for baseline and time-varying confounders of both LARC use and socioeconomic status.