Women in the US did not have broad access to fast and private pregnancy confirmation until the FDA approved home pregnancy tests in 1977. Now home pregnancy tests are widely used: nearly 8 million women in the US used this over-the-counter device in 2020. Home pregnancy tests provide early fertility information that was not well accessible for many women before 1977. The information shock allows women to make timely family planning decisions, increasing assessing abortion services. In this paper, I investigate if living close to a drugstore, the primary point of access for home pregnancy tests at the time, affects fertility and women's later-life outcomes.

There is little work estimating the impact of home pregnancy testing on fertility or women's outcomes. Indeed, home pregnancy testing might seem relatively unimportant given that it became available only after two other powerful reproductive technologies: birth control pills in 1960 and legalized abortion in 1973. However, by providing timely and accurate information, home pregnancy tests indirectly reduce the costs of abortion. Specifically, early pregnancy confirmation gives women more time to make decisions, making them more likely to meet the gestational limits to abortion and giving them more and safer abortion options. Greater ability to control fertility may allow women to invest in their own human capital, benefiting women in the short and long run.

Using an event-study design, I document significant trend breaks in fertility rates after 1977 among women who had access to drugstores, with the strongest effects for those aged 15-29. The reductions in fertility are concentrated among those with access to abortion services. In the long run, I compare cohorts with different exposure levels to home pregnancy tests in high school using a DID estimation. I find that women with access to home pregnancy tests and abortion services delayed childbirth. These women were also more likely to not marry and less likely to divorce. This paper contributes to the literature on information shock and reproductive technologies. My empirical findings that providing early pregnancy confirmation has significant implications in both short and long terms are policy-relevant at the population level.