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Restrictions on the killing of preborn babies are harmful to women because they affect their earning potential, a new study argues.
Professor Eden King and her co-authors were motivated by the 2022 Supreme Court ruling Dobbs v. Jackson, which affirmed there is no federal right to abortion. King said she disagreed with the idea that abortion restrictions do not affect a woman’s economic situation and so wanted to study the issue.
The study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, argues women have lower earnings when they have kids.
“[T]his study finds that women who had an abortion or avoided pregnancy early in their careers were associated with significantly higher earnings over time compared with those who became mothers,” the authors wrote. “Reproductive decisions are not just a health issue, but an economic one.”
In addition to suggesting subsidized maternity leave and daycare, the authors also want taxpayers and companies to pay for abortion.
“Access to abortion may help safeguard women’s economic standing and workforce participation,” they write. “Because of state-level variation in access, employees may benefit from employer sponsored travel and reproductive health care support.”
One of the authors though said the paper does not argue women should have abortions or delay having kids to make more money.
“No, we don’t suggest abortion or delaying children is needed to have higher earnings, rather we looked at the association between reproductive decisions and income earning trajectories,” Professor Nicola Lawrence-Thomas told The Fix via email. She teaches at the University of Sheffield in England.
“We found women who had children later or didn’t have children early [earned] more overall,” the professor wrote.
She declined to comment on whether she would recommend women delay having kids.
“Having children is an incredibly personal decision, I wouldn’t make recommendations for women as we are a heterogeneous group with different goals and priorities,” she said. “This study suggests education and labor force participation are key to higher income trajectories.”
The Fix asked why some women might prioritize having kids over making money. Lawrence-Thomas said she could not “speak to the motivations of women as this wasn’t what we looked at in the study.”
Abortion integral to feminism, conservative scholar says
An expert on family studies and critic of “careerism” said women should “prioritize” motherhood. He also said that feminists at least acknowledge there is a “trade-off” between working and parenting.
“Abortion is necessary to the career-oriented women project, which is why feminists supported abortion from the get-go in the 1960s,” Professor Scott Yenor said. He is a political scientist at Boise State University and directs the Heritage Foundation’s Kenneth B. Simon Center for American Studies.
“Ending a pregnancy makes more time for work. The two things go together,” Yenor said. “Abortion may also allow people to make more money by delaying pregnancy. This, again, is a classic trade-off.”
But he said women should not prioritize making money over having kids.
“I would recommend that many women want to prioritize motherhood and they should,” Yenor told The Fix. “Our country needs more of them.”
He also explained why some people take a negative view toward kids.
“People prioritize work for many reasons: it is important to their identity, they enjoy exercising their talents,” Yenor said. He also suggested “they do not particularly like children of domesticity, they are suspicious of men, they want to earn money.”
The political scientist also suggested women who want to have kids but also make money consider flexible jobs, including remote work.
