The positive consequences of contraceptives on women's role in

the society
birth control gives certainty to employers that the women workers under
them will not be on extensive maternal leave suddenly. this allows women
to take up more senior positions.
(evidence: in Singapore more women are stepping up in the parliament

etc- more of gender equality)

allows family planning:
thru contraceptives they can still lead a healthy sex life with their
husbands without having children...so as not to compromise their career

Women are uniquely capable of bringing new life into the world. The realization of this
potential is, for many, the source of great personal joy and satisfaction. A woman's potential
to bear a child is also a tremendous responsibility and, as such, demands personal sacrifice.
Not only does she commit her body to carrying the pregnancy and delivering a baby, she
exposes herself to very real risks to her life and health. For some women in the world, the
chance of dying in her lifetime due to complications in pregnancy will exceed one in 10.
While the risk remains much lower in developed countries such as the United States, the
risk remains real and not entirely controllable.
Modern women are not defined merely by their capacity to bear children. As a society, we
welcome and endorse the participation and contribution of women in all aspects of life. A
woman's ability to responsibly control her reproductive potential is necessary for her to be
an equal partner in society. Reproductive control is necessary for her to simultaneously
pursue and achieve personal intimacy while pursuing a career or avocation contributing to
the society. Only when ready can she responsibly bear children. Without access to
contraception, a woman must choose between relationships of personal intimacy and equal
partnership in the society as a whole. Without contraception, a woman must sacrifice
intimate relationships if she is to pursue full economic participation in the society or if she
wants to achieve personal growth and greater maturity prior to motherhood.
It clearly states that women are entitled to the fulfillment of intimate relationships
without the inherent obligation to have children. In doing so, it also affirms the
inherent responsibility of childbearing as a choice that should be undertaken
responsibly, not by chance.

Her aim is to evaluate the private benefits to women stemming from changes to their set of incentives and
choices from four different policies: abortion rights; the endorsement of the pill in national public policies;
mutual consent divorce; and maternity protection in the workplace. She finds that:

Following the introduction of birth control rights, women who were effectively exposed to the
policy (that is, they were of childbearing age at the time the policy was introduced) consistently
registered an increase in welfare.

The magnitude of the welfare gain is equivalent to one tenth of going up one level on a 12category scale of income (roughly gaining 600 more a year on a 20,000 income) or of having
higher rather than middle education (or middle rather than low education). It is also equivalent to
one third of the gain from being married or cohabiting. It is smaller (by around one third) than the
corresponding welfare loss from being unemployed and one seventh of the loss from being
separated.

Other women and men have not reported any significant effect.

The effect on women of childbearing age is stronger, the younger the women were when they
received birth control rights and the longer they were exposed to them. Marginal returns start to
decline after the woman is 35 years old.

Life satisfaction effects are consistent with changes operating through economic choices. The
data strongly confirm that birth control rights caused an increase in women's investment in
education, probability of working and income level.

Women professing religions that are firmly against birth control rights did not exhibit a change in
their welfare.

The analysis shows that mutual consent divorce laws have decreased women's welfare, while
granting high maternity protection in the workplace did not have significant effects, possibly
because of negative feedback effects on the employability of women.