A recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has been receiving a great deal of media coverage this month. It analyzed change-of-address data from the U.S. Postal Service. It purportedly found that people, particularly singles, are moving away from states with strong pro-life laws.
Specifically, the study claims that 13 states that effectively banned abortion collectively lost a net 36,000 residents every quarter since Dobbs. This study has been covered by a number of media outlets including the Financial Times, CBS News, 19thnews.org, Jezebel, and HealthDay.
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Not surprisingly, there is less here than meets the eye. Change-of-address data might not be the most accurate way to measure interstate migration. That is because not everyone who moves files a change-of-address card. Furthermore, for privacy reasons, the U.S. Postal Service discloses only aggregate change-of-address data for ZIP codes where more than ten people reported a change of address. Given that, there might be a problem with missing data. The study also assumes that 13 states that effectively banned abortion all did so shortly after Dobbs, but some pro-life laws did not take effect until months afterward. Finally, the NBER study considers data only until the second quarter of 2023, and so considers no data from either 2024 or the last six months of 2023.
Importantly, data from the U.S. Census Bureau tells a much different story. Currently, 16 states either largely protect all preborn children or have in effect a heartbeat act that protects the preborn after six weeks’ gestation. Census Bureau data show that in fiscal 2024, 13 of these states saw population increases because of interstate migration. The only states with strong pro-life laws in effect that lost population because of interstate migration were Louisiana and Mississippi. Meanwhile, many states with permissive abortion policies, including California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois, and Maryland, all lost population because of interstate migration in fiscal 2024.
Ever since Dobbs, academic researchers and their allies in the mainstream media have worked overtime to try to find evidence of the negative impact of pro-life laws. So far, they have not found much. Contrary to media spin, infant mortality rates have declined since the first quarter of 2023. One study claimed, using survey data, that students would be less likely to attend a college in a state with strong pro-life laws. However, many schools in states with strong pro-life laws — including Rice, Texas A&M, the University of Tennessee, and the University of Oklahoma — all reported rising enrollments. This new NBER study is just the latest attempt to claim that pro-life laws cause negative policy outcomes.
