Fifty years ago, a landmark Supreme Court ruling changed the course of women's lives forever.
On June 7, 1965, Griswold v. Connecticut legalized the
birth control pill for married couples, paving the way for rulings that
led to birth control access for all women. Since then, the pill has
been an unparalled cultural force — it's what Letty Cottin Pogrebin,
founding editor of Ms. Magazine, called "an equalizer, a liberator," and what Playboy
editor Hugh Hefner said reshaped the view that "sexual intercourse is
about a good deal more than turning two people into parents," according to CNN.
While we may associate the pill with the sexual revolution
and our modern, casual sex-filled reality, it has changed women's lives
in ways that — surprise, surprise — go far beyond sex. Today, more than 99%
of sexually active women ages 15 to 44 have used at least one method of
contraception. And that contraception has given generations of women
autonomy over their fertility, and thus, their futures.
Here are seven major ways that little pill has impacted women's achievements over the past five decades.
1. It helps women get to college.
Having access to the pill at a younger age influences
college enrollment. "Overall, among women in their early 20s, college
enrollment was 20% higher among those who had had legal pill access at
age 18, compared with women who could not legally obtain the pill in
late adolescence," the Guttmacher Institute found.
"This is a critical period when women are making decisions —
about marriage, who to date, whether to marry, whether to attend
college, what to major in and what types of careers to plan for," Martha
Bailey, research associate professor at the Population Studies Center
at the University of Michigan and author of the research, told Mic.
"This critical period determines a lot of what happens over the next 20
years, which is why access to birth control during this critical period
can have such large effects."
2. It helps them stay in school longer.
By giving women control over when or if they want to start
families, the pill allowed women the choice to take time and space for
other pursuits that didn't include marriage or kids. That meant more
women in college, staying for longer.
"Young women
who could access the pill before having to decide whether
to pursue higher education obtained an average of about
one year more of education before age 30," according to research highlighted by the Guttmacher Institute. Today, women outnumber men in college enrollment.
3. It propels women to high-earning jobs.
A 2002 Harvard University study found that "more lenient laws led to a greater
use of oral contraceptives and directly produced an increase in the age
at first marriage and also led to an increase in the fraction of women
entering professional school and ending up in professional careers." The study even estimated that the pill accounted for a 30% increase in the proportion of women who entered skilled careers.
That means more women are in high-earning jobs like law,
medicine and business. Since 1970, the share of women working in
management or professional occupations has risen from 19.9% to 51% in 2011, according to Bloomberg Business.
"Now women are half the workforce, depending on the year
you look at, and that's just never been true before," Cecile Richards,
president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told Mic.
4. It's helping close the pay gap between men and women.
While the wage gap
still exists today, it would be a whole lot more significant if it
weren't for women taking control over their fertility. A 2012 study
found that the decrease in the wage gap between men and women ages 25
to 49 "would
have been 10% smaller in the 1980s and 30% smaller in
the 1990s" without legal birth control access. More time to decide
whether to have a family allowed for women to invest in their careers
and get a higher pay check to boot.
5. It's brought teen and unintended pregnancies to an all-time low.
This one is a no-brainer. With more women on the pill,
that means less risk of unintended pregnancies, especially at a young
age. A 2007 study found that 86% of the decline in teen pregnancy could be attributed to better contraceptive use.
"There is a 30-year low in this country both in teen
pregnancy and unintended pregnancy and that's not because women changed
their minds about these issues. It's because they actually had access to
information and health care that allowed them to make the best
decisions for themselves," Richards said.
6. It's helped our families to flourish.
A 2014 study found
that people born in the years following the introduction of family
planning programs — those that provide contraception — were less likely
to live in poverty.
"We find that children born after these programs began
(relative to those born before these programs began in the same
counties) were significantly less likely to live in poverty both as
children and as adults," Bailey, author of the study, told Mic.
7. We're simply happier being in control of our fates.
Parents who plan their families may very well be happier. "Unplanned births are tied to increased conflict and decreased satisfaction in relationships and with elevated odds that a relationship will fail. ...Contraceptive access and consistent method use may also affect mental health outcomes by allowing couples to plan the number of children in their family," according to the Guttmacher Institute. The pill not only impacts women, but the families they build.
"You can mark so much progress that women have made since
that time in everything, whether their economic gains or financial
opportunities," Richards said. "I think it's something to celebrate, but
also redouble our efforts and make sure it's something available for
everyone."