♪ [music] ♪ [Alex] When Katharine McCormick
was born in 1875, hardly any women went to college,
women couldn't vote, and birth control --
that was being made a crime. McCormick set out
to change all of this. She graduated with a biology degree
from MIT in 1904, only the second woman ever
to graduate at MIT. She worked
on the Suffrage Movement, she helped to pass
the 19th Amendment, which in 1920 guaranteed women
the right to vote. And throughout her life,
she promoted female education. But her greatest contribution
to female education came in a way that even she
might not have expected. In the 1950s, a group
of scientists were working on an oral form
of birth control, the pill. But the research was slow and the political climate
at the time was controversial, and their funding was pulled. McCormick had been a long time
supporter of birth control . . . in her earlier years, going so far as to smuggle in
diaphragms from Europe. Now, at 78, she stepped in
to provide the scientists with much needed financial support. Doesn't seem like
a controversial idea today, but at the time,
using birth control or selling it -- that could land you in jail. So now you're probably wondering, "Okay -- what does this all
have to do with economics?" Of course, economics
has to do with everything. Perhaps you recall
from an earlier video that during the 20th century, the labor force participation rates
of women increased significantly, especially since the mid-1960s. Not only did more women start
to work in the paid labor force, but we also saw an explosion
in the number of women in professional fields,
like medicine and law. Research by the economist
Claudia Goldin with Lawrence Katz
and also Martha Bailey, shows that the major factor
explaining these dramatic increases was the invention
and legalization of the pill. The pill was approved for sale
in the United States in 1960. But incredibly,
24 states at that time still prohibited the sale
of any contraceptive. And a number of other states
restricted sales to married women only. In Connecticut, not only was
the sale of birth control illegal, it was illegal to use it with violations punishable
with a prison sentence. Nevertheless,
growing demand for the pill pushed it onto center stage. There was a nationwide debate
about women's rights and sexuality. Some people feared sexual anarchy
if the pill became widely used. Others felt that it was a
fundamental right of a woman to control when
she would have a child. In 1965, the Supreme Court
stepped into this debate. They ruled that
what a married couple did in the privacy
of their own bedroom -- that was their business,
not the government's. As the pill became more
widely available with these rulings, the number of women entering
professional degree programs exploded. This graph from our textbook
with Tyler, <i>Modern Principles</i>, shows how, from 1955 to about 1970,
fewer than 10% of the students entering these programs
were women. But by 1980,
those rates had doubled. And then they doubled again. So that by 1995, lots of professional programs
had 40 to 50% women entrants. Now, clearly, other things were
also changing during this time. So how do we know that
the pill was a driving force? One strong piece of evidence is that the states that legalized
the pill earlier -- they also had earlier increases
in female professional education and labor force participation rates. So what exactly was it
about the pill that made it easier for women to participate
in the paid labor force? Overall, it wasn't that the pill
reduced the number of children. Much more important was that
the pill gave women greater control over when children were born. It's another story of incentives. Economist Martha Bailey
summed it up by providing a low-cost means
of delaying childbearing. Oral contraception allowed women
to remain in school, pursue longer-term careers, and work more
in the paid labor force during ages historically
associated with childbearing. If you look around MIT today,
you can find McCormick Hall, an all-female residence that was one of Katharine McCormick's last gifts. But if you really want
to see her influence, take a look
at all the female students studying engineering,
medicine, law, and of course, economics. [Narrator] If you want
to test yourself, click "Practice Questions." Or, if you're ready to move on, you can click
"Go to the Next Video." You can also visit MRUniversity.com to see our entire library
of videos and resources. ♪ [music] ♪