State-level abortion restrictions widen the gender pay gap and constrain women’s economic options, a new study finds. Abortion restrictions are so harmful to women’s financial prospects that each new restriction triggers a 5% drop in the average salary of reproductive-age women. The paper will be published next year in the Indiana Law Journal.
In Dobbs v. Jackson, one of Mississippi’s central arguments in favor of abortion bans was that access to abortion is not important for women’s economic empowerment, and that forced pregnancy does not halt women’s full participation in social life.
The research shows otherwise.
In their study, researchers looked at states that passed abortion restrictions between 1973 and 2016. Then they measured outcomes for a sample of Americans ages 20 to 62, and compared outcomes for women of reproductive age to the rest of the population.
Targeted regulations of abortion providers (TRAP), which are laws that limit abortion or excessively regulate abortion clinics, reduced women’s average salaries by an average of 5% per regulation. And each new TRAP law increases the odds of a woman staying home because of housework obligations by 11%.
The data did not compare mothers or pregnant people to non-mothers. Instead, it found gaps across the board between reproductive age women and the rest of the sample. This suggests that a person doesn’t have to be pregnant to be affected by abortion laws. Instead, women who believe that their reproductive choices may be constrained may make a wide range of decisions with this in mind.
Research consistently shows that motherhood constrains women’s life options, primarily because male partners do not do an equitable share of work. Forced motherhood is clearly a tool of economic and social oppression, and the research now shows that merely being exposed to forced motherhood, even if a person is not pregnant, is sufficient to constrain women’s life options.
Previous research has found that access to abortion improves men’s economic options and life outcomes, too.