Determinants of Abortion: Statistical Analysis - Essay Example

Determinants of Abortion: Statistical Analysis Introduction For many years, abortion has been an issue of debate for scholars in different fields. In politics, the manner in which a candidate approaches abortion influences the candidate’s probability of success. For that reason, candidates ought to understand proximate causes of abortion, voters’ perception about the issue as well as its advance effects on both social life and economic progress. As matter of fact, in most cases, abortion Is taken for positive reasons and thus discouraging, or rather banning it in a manifesto may build a negative perception towards the candidates actions.

According to Frum , many women pursue abortion due to financial insecurity and might not care whether the action is legal or not(Frum). As matter of fact, more than 50% of cases in abortion have an economic related cause, such as poverty, urge to focus on taking care of other children, poor timing and lack of access to family planning procedures (Biggs eta al). Therefore, addressing abortion, by embarking upon causation agents, positively impacts on the economy. Note that many voters consider economy as the most important issue US campaigns.

This paper analysis the significant factors affecting the decision to abort and thus forms a precise basis for the candidate to make an informed stand on whether and how to illegalise abortion. Theoretically, religious doctrines have a significant effect on abortion decision and hence, religiosity, marked as the major determinant is expected to have a negative impact on abortion rates. Other variables included are majorly economical, such as average income and abortion affordability (price and availability of funds).

Data description Crucial variable Data from various states was collected and tabulated to ease the analysis products. These data consisted of 50 observations in congruence the 50 regions studied. Abortion rate (number per 1000 women aged between 15-440, was tabulated as the dependent variable. Exogenous variables used include; percentage religiosity, average cost of abortion in non-hospital facilities, existence of abortion laws, level of education and disposable income per capita.

Summary statistics Table 2; descriptive statistics along the law dummy variable As seen, there were no missing observations among the data and thus the whole data set was used for analysis. Abortion rate data was normally distributed with its mean (of 20.578) approximately equal to the median (18.4) and mode (18.2). Additionally, despite having a large range (41.9), with a minimum of 4.3 and maximum rate of 46.2, the data’s skewness is not statistically different from zero (skewness = 0.9174). Notably, abortion rates are relatively high with regions without abortion related laws (mean of 22, highest value of 46.

2 and lowest 6.8) and lower in the law enforced regions (with a mean of 16, ranging from 4.3 to 30). There exists a noticeable variation in religious attachment across the studied regions. A range of 66.9 is considerably high. With a mean of 32.65 and being positively skewed implies that most of the religions strongly religious. The range of prices is relatively low, with the highest being 461 and the lowest as 228. Though the mean price is relatively high ($305.12), it’s still affordable given that the average disposable per-capita income is 19215.52. On average the resistance to abortion is not statistically different from 50% (mean of picket = 52%), ranging from 0% (regions where abortion is totally accepted) to 100% (areas of total rejection).

Model description Theoretically, the stated exogenous variables are assumed to have a causative effect on abortion rates (depended variable). The model was thus specified as: Where: abortion ; abortion rate, #per 1000 women Religion ; religiosity measured in percentage of religious people P : average price in non-hospital facilities for abortion Y: disposable income percapita Educ; percentage in state aged 25+ with high school degree Funds: = 1 if state funds are available for abortion and 0 otherwise Law; = 1 if state enforces law restricting minors access to abortion and 0 otherwise Picket; Percent of respondents experiencing picketing α and β’s are parameters while µ is the error term.

Given that abortion rate was normally distributed, it was assumed that the error term was also normally distribute and thus OLS (ordinary Least Squares) was used to estimate the model. The hypothesis to be tested was whether religion and other factors affected abortion rates and to what extent. For that reason, the statistical significance of the parameters was tested as well as the overall significance of the model. Estimation/ inference The model was estimated as: The overall model was found to be statistically significant, with a probability F = 2.

8472 *10-6. Implying that, at least one of the coefficients is statistically different from zero, at 5% significant level. An increase in religiosity increases the rate of abortion (positive sign of β1). However, with a p- value of 0.8, the coefficient is not statistically significant. Similarly the availability of funds had a positive on abortion rate, with the coefficient not statistically different from zero at a 5% significant level. Education, price and availability of laws negatively affected laws.

The extent of their impact could not be determined in the model since their coefficients were not statistically different from zero (note that their p- values are greater than the significant level; 0.05). The only statistically significant coefficients are β6 and β7, with p-values of 4.35*10-6 and 0.0083 respectively. According to the model, a unit increase in income increases the rate of abortion by 0.0024%, holding other factors constant. On the other hand, a 1% increase in the level of picketing reduces abortion rates by 0.12%. The model can be termed as fit, given that the used independent variables explain 57.74% (50.70 when adjusted for degrees of freedom) of all changes in the depended variable (R2 = 0.

5774, and adjusted R2 = 0.5070), leaving 42.26 %( and 49.3 when adjusted for degrees of freedom) of the changes to be explained by other variables. Conclusion From the inferences, it can be observed that religion has a positive impact on abortion rates. Though its coefficient is statistically insignificant, its influence is minimal given the divergence in religious doctrines. Income and picketing have played a significant role in reducing abortion rates. To reduce abortion rates, the candidate ought to focus more on this two variables, and more specifically Abortion picketing.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that law enforcement, a mode of picketing, significantly reduces abortion (see description statistics) Work cited Frum, David. "Let's Get Real About Abortions " CNN. N.p., 29 Oct. 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. . Biggs, Antonia M., Heather Gould, and Diana G. Foster. "Understanding why women seek abortions in the US." BMC Women's Health (2013): n. pag. Web.