Minimum wage policies and obstetric disorders in the U.S. w. McGovern. M., Rokicki, S., and Reichman, N. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2026, 70(2). Available Online.

Introduction Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are a major public health problem in the US, with high rates among disadvantaged communities. This study examined the impact of minimum wage (MW) policies on hypertensive and other obstetric disorders in a population-based setting. 

Methods This study used U.S. national, state-level data from the 1992-2019 Global Burden of Disease study to estimate associations between changes in state-level MWs and the incidence of maternal hypertensive and other obstetric disorders. Generalized difference-in-differences models were implemented. Analysis was performed January – July 2025. 

Results The mean incidence of maternal hypertensive disorders was 410 cases per 100,000 women. In fully adjusted two-way fixed effects models, a $1 or greater increase in the MW was associated with a reduction in the incidence of maternal hypertensive disorders of 64.1 per 100,000 women (95% CI -108.6,-19.7) over 5 years. Results were consistent across a variety of estimation strategies, including two-way fixed effects and alternative approaches designed to account for staggered policy implementation. 

Conclusions Findings suggest that MW policies may play a role in reducing maternal hypertensive disorders. Further research is needed using individual-level data to explore effect heterogeneity and examine subgroup impacts by race and ethnicity. 

Introduction Smoking before and during pregnancy has long-lasting adverse effects for children’s health and development. Financial stress is an important risk factor for maternal smoking, but there is little evidence on how economic policies affect tobacco use. We examined whether increases in state minimum wages had an impact on maternal smoking and cessation.

Methods This was a secondary analysis of cross-sectional surveillance data from 46 states between 2004 and 2019. Our analysis sample included women without college education. Outcomes were use of cigarettes in the 3 months before pregnancy, the last 3 months of pregnancy, and in the postpartum period, as well as cessation of smoking during and after pregnancy. For the main analysis, a two-way fixed effects difference-in-differences analysis was used to estimate the effects of state-level minimum wage policies on outcomes, adjusting for individual covariates (age, race and ethnicity, marital status, parity, education and month of birth), state-level economic and tobacco policies, and state and year fixed effects. We also explored robustness to de Chaisemartin & D’Haultfœuille (dCDH)’s heterogeneity-robust alternative estimator. Subgroup analysis examined heterogeneous impacts by race and ethnicity, age, marital status and pregnancy intention. We tested differences by subgroup using interaction models and testing the joint null hypothesis of coefficients. We used the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure to adjust p values for multiple comparisons.

Results The study analysed 421 884 women of whom 28% smoked in the 3 months prior to pregnancy. A 10% increase in the minimum wage was associated with a 0.75 (95% CI −1.32 to −0.19) percentage point decrease in the probability of smoking before pregnancy. Associations were strongest for women who were American Indian/Alaska Native, non-Hispanic White, married and had an unintended pregnancy. Two-way fixed effect results were consistent when using the dCDH estimator. There were no significant associations between minimum wages and smoking during pregnancy or postpartum, or on smoking cessation. The conclusions of the analysis do not change when adjusted for multiple hypothesis testing.

Conclusions Estimates suggest that an increase from the current federal minimum wage of US$7.25–US$14 would be associated with a 17% decrease in smoking prior to pregnancy in a demographic group that is disproportionately affected by poor health outcomes.

This study empirically tests the effect of competition on differentiation by using data on Korean domestic airline’s departure schedule during the period of 2010--016, when low cost carriers(LCC) entered and it raised the competition of the market. This study finds that more fiercely competing route is less differentiated on their departure schedule than that of highly concentrated route, which supports the prediction of Hotelling model. In other words, the incentive to cluster dominates the incentive to differentiate, as market competition increases. This is more obvious when I separately estimate the effect of competition of LCC, implying price competition is more important for LCC that differentiation.