Economics of Coerced Motherhood as US Fertility Falls to Historic Lows

Demonstrators outside the Texas state capitol. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

The United States fertility rate has slipped to historic lows, a structural shift that now looks less like a demographic quirk in urban areas and more like a long-term economic risk. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s provisional natality report for 2024 puts the total fertility rate (TFR) roughly at 1.63 births per woman, well below the 2.1 replacement level needed to sustain the population without immigration. Policymakers are aware that fewer births today mean a smaller future workforce, higher dependency ratios, and mounting fiscal strains for public pensions, health care, and social services. But the real discussion starts when the pro-natalist policies fail to fix the issue.

The OECD warns that sustained low fertility will put the prosperity of future generations at risk unless governments combine policies that raise labor-force participation and productivity. The IMF and McKinsey reach a similar conclusion: aging populations reduce the share of working-age people, slow per capita income growth, and widen gaps between the places that can attract workers and those that cannot. Recent U.S. patterns are surprising to some policymakers: long-observed high-fertility pockets such as Utah are experiencing sharp falls in births, and many of the biggest recent drops are concentrated in rural and less-educated counties. These results undermine simple cultural explanations and show how economic uncertainty and growing hostility toward pro-choice movements change demographic outcomes as they choose later or fewer births because the economic, social, and political costs of motherhood fall overwhelmingly in the new political environment.

There’s also a critical policy lesson in the post-Dobbs U.S. experience. Research shows that states imposing severe limits on abortion saw only modest population-level increases in births; studies place the rise in the low single digits, often around 1-3%. At the same time, being denied a wanted abortion is associated with sustained economic harm for the person forced to carry the pregnancy, higher rates of poverty, worse labor-market outcomes, and long-term financial distress, according to research based on the Turnaway Study conducted by University of California. In short, coercive restrictions can produce small bumps in birth counts while concentrating economic and health harms on the most vulnerable families.

Economists and policy analysts point to a limited toolkit that raises fertility in ways consistent with better economic outcomes. Durable increases in nordic countries that have succeeded are associated with policies that make it easier for women and men to combine paid work with caregiving. Immigration that boosts female and worker participation also matters, but it requires long-term planning and fiscal capacity.

The Turkish contrast sharpens the point. Ankara’s 2025 “Aile Yılı” (Family Year) campaign has foregrounded pro-natalist messaging and incentives like increasing the subsidies for families with multiple children, but civil-society monitors warn that any effort to increase births without addressing women’s safety and rights is hollow in the country. Türkiye documented record femicide numbers in 2024, and rights groups say the government’s family-first posture rings empty if legal protections and enforcement get behind; social environments that make women less secure are unlikely to produce sustainable rises in fertility.

As Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center, put it in a recent interview, “There are no easy answers here. Fertility rates are tied to housing markets, student debt, childcare availability, and the broader sense of stability people feel about their futures.” Treating low fertility as a signal of broader economic insecurity seems to be the better solution for the US case: invest in housing affordability, stable employment, childcare, and parental leave to reduce the lifetime cost of raising children. Second, preserve and expand rights, including reproductive autonomy and protection from gender-based violence, so that parenthood is a choice made under conditions of safety and economic possibility, not coercion.Restricting abortion or weakening protections against gender-based violence does not create stable families; it produces what sociologist Caitlyn Collins calls “coerced motherhood,” which comes with significant economic and social costs. In her words: “If you want people to have children, you have to build the social conditions in which parenthood is not a punishment, especially for women.” Countries that combine robust social infrastructure, gender equality in work and caregiving, and pragmatic migration policies are most likely to avoid the worst economic outcomes of demographic decline.

Edited by: Ömer Gökce