Expecting the unexpected : How distance to maternity wards affects moving

Abstract: This thesis investigates how a closure of a maternity ward affects the moves intoand out of a municipality. The policy focus of a centralization of maternal care in Sweden may bring unseen consequences that matter for society in a larger sense than only births. By treating closeness to a maternity ward as a positive amenity for a municipality, these closures introduce an exogenous variation that is used to estimate how moves change over time. With the lack of data availability, utilizing Sweden’s administrative areas, the lack of data over amenities as well as other factors such as employment possibilities are compensated for, revealing the possibility of using similar areas as potential substitutes for amenities. The results indicate that closures are likely to introduce a lower mobility for the regions as both fewer moves in and fewer moves out are revealed in the estimates. The results are strongly significant, a one minute increase of travel time would be associated with a decrease of around 3 moves in and 2.7 moves out. These results are mostly robust, and findings suggest north and south of Sweden are fundamentally different.