We examine the effects of free-of-charge availability of emergency contraception on contraceptive behaviour in Chile. Using a survey of individuals 15 to 29, we exploit variation in availability at the municipality level as a consequence of legal and judicial decisions in the late 2000s. We find an increase in the use of emergency contraception in municipalities in which it was available through the public health system, but also an increase in the use of other methods of hormonal, pre-coital contraception, and a decrease of more traditional contraceptive methods. This effect is concentrated among groups with a low starting use of contraceptives, who may benefit from the contact with the health services. Unlike previous results for developed countries, our results indicate that there is scope for an effect of emergency contraception in settings with low starting levels of contraceptive use, and a significant potential for policies to increase adoption of regular contraception.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.