"Poor policies around paid family leave and options for child care create challenges for many in the United States, and that hasn’t changed post-Dobbs, said Beth Jarosz, a demographer and program director with the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau who focuses on child well-being. “With the end of stimulus payments and some pandemic-era social network programs, birth rates may decline because people don’t feel like they have the resources to properly care for kids,” said Jarosz, who was not involved with the new Johns Hopkins research. “Will birth rates fall faster because of that or rise faster because of more restrictive abortion access? The implications are anyone’s guess.”"