Impact of state children's health insurance program on fertility of immigrant women

Between 1997 and 2000, all states in the United States (US) enacted the State Children's Health Insurance Programme (SCHIP) to provide publicly funded health insurance coverage for children in low-income families. However, only 15 states including the District of Columbia initially chose to provide coverage for children of newly arrived immigrants in their SCHIP. We exploit the resulting state and time variation in the implementation of the programme in a difference-in-differences framework to estimate the effect of a publicly funded children's health insurance benefit on immigrant women's fertility. While estimates from full samples show that the net effect of the programme was indistinguishable from zero, we find a significant positive effect on the fertility of unmarried immigrant women, both at the extensive and at the intensive margin. Our findings have important policy implications for societies experiencing a persistent decline in fertility.