Birth strike : the hidden fight over women's work / Jenny Brown.

Argues that the effort to block birth control and abortion in the United States is neither fundamentally about religion nor about politicians pandering to a right-wing base, nor is it a result of prudery or to punish women for having sex. It is about the labor of bearing and rearing children: who will do it and who will pay for it. Hidden behind the conventional explanations is a dramatic fight over women's reproductive labor. On one side, elite policymakers want an expanding workforce reared with a minimum of employer spending and a maximum of unpaid women's work. On the other side, women are refusing to produce children at levels desired by economic planners. With little access to childcare, family leave, health care, and with insufficient male participation, U.S. women are conducting a spontaneous birth strike. In other countries, panic over low birth rates has led governments to underwrite childbearing with generous universal programs, but in the U.S., women have not yet realized the potential of their bargaining position. When they do, Brown contends that it will lead to new strategies for winning full access to abortion and birth control, and for improving the difficult working conditions U.S. parents now face when raising children. --Adapted from publisher description.