By now, we all are aware of the leaked Supreme Court decision that, should it stand, will reverse Roe vs Wade and allow states to restrict or outlaw abortion. When asked about the forthcoming decision, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen replied that abortion is an economic issue. I could not agree more with that statement. Yellen went on to cite research showing improved education and labor market outcomes among women, especially minority women, who have access to abortion services.
Though I have great respect for Secretary Yellen as one of my professional heroes, I believe her conclusion that legalized abortion is a necessary part of a strong economy is based in a literature that is one-sided in its approach to the economics of abortion.
After reading Yellen’s remarks, I did some digging of my own. My primary goal was better to understand the economic costs and benefits of abortion, and I specifically was concerned with social, not individual, costs and benefits. Unsurprisingly, with a topic as complex as abortion, there is not clear consensus in the literature on the precise economic impact of abortion.
A couple of themes emerge pretty strongly. 1) As Secretary Yellen asserted, availability of unrestricted abortion reduces fertility and increases educational attainment and labor market participation of women. 2) The financial benefits to taxpayers of funding safe abortions far outweigh the costs of post-abortion care when safe abortion is not accessible.
Indeed, authors of a 2021 peer-reviewed publication found, “On average, the cost of meeting a woman’s unmet need for modern contraceptive supplies and services for one year would amount to just 3 to 12 percent of the average cost of treating a patient who requires post-abortion care.”
What I find missing from most of the literature and from Dr. Yellen’s assessment of the economics of abortion is a whole other side of the story here—the value to the economy of the lives lost when women choose abortion over birth. Most aborted pregnancies could otherwise have ended with a birth. And, given a couple of decades, most births translate into societal contributors and labor force participants.
A 2009 study found that a birth reduces a woman’s labor supply by almost 2 years, but the same study showed that removing abortion restrictions significantly reduces fertility. Productivity lost to abortion in the last half century in the US is non-trivial, especially in light of the Murphy Center’s recent series of columns on our aging labor force.
Surveys administered by the Guttmacher Institute and data from the State of Florida, where a reason is recorded for every abortion, indicate that less than 10% of abortions are performed due to health problems of the fetus or the mother. If we assume, then, that 90% of the 225,075 abortions performed in Georgia from 1990 through 1995 could have instead resulted in a birth, and if we assume the current labor force participation rate of 62.7%, these abortions could have translated to over 127,000 labor force participants between the ages of 27 and 32 today. Those folks would be consumers and tax payers, too!
To reach a conclusion on whether or not abortion restrictions are good economic policy would require far more study than is feasible in this format, but I suspect the scales would tip in favor of growing our future labor force through restricted access to abortion. This is especially true if the economic hardship women avoid through abortion were made less severe through sensible, family-friendly workplace and public policies, especially those specifically targeted to empower minority and low-income women, who are more likely than others to seek abortions.
Of course, when offering abortion policy analysis, there are many complexities to consider from many angles. But, an economic analysis that does not consider the opportunity cost of abortion is an incomplete analysis. It is irresponsible for any academic to advise on policy without having considered both benefits and costs of their recommendations. In particular, one of the primary contributions of economists to any conversation is opportunity cost analysis. In the abortion debate, my profession is getting wrapped up in political opinions and failing to do what we do best. I’m disappointed.
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Dr. Melissa Trussell is a professor in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia who works with the college’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. Contact her at mtrussell@ccga.edu.
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