The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 24, 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization fundamentally changed access to abortion across the country, overturning Roe v. Wade and ending nearly 50 years of federal protections.
In the months that followed, 13 states enacted near-total abortion bans, while others chose to maintain or expand abortion access. These policy junctures may now be reflected in housing data.
A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that states with blanket abortion bans experience slower rental price growth and higher vacancy rates compared to states that maintain or strengthen abortion access.
Insofar as abortion policy is factored into migration decisions, our findings indicate a potential link between reproductive rights and housing demand, which may increasingly shape local market conditions.
Post-Dobbs patchwork takes shape
The June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Authority decision sparked a sharp disconnect in abortion access and reproductive health care across the country.Although many states had already imposed restrictions before the ruling, Dobbs fundamentally reset the legal landscape by overturning Roe v. Wade and returning control over abortion policy to states.
Shortly after, 13 states, including Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, and Alabama, moved to implement near-total abortion bans. At the same time, 24 states and the District of Columbia maintained legal or constitutional protections or continued to allow abortions up to the pre-Dobbs viability threshold.
A third group of states occupies a more fluid middle ground, characterized by ongoing legal issues, partial restrictions such as pregnancy restrictions, or policy frameworks that rapidly evolve in the months following a decision.
Population declines in states that prohibit abortion
A growing body of research suggests that differences in access to abortion contribute to widening disparities in outcomes for women, infants, and families across states. Previous research has found that abortion regulations can have ripple effects beyond pregnancy outcomes, such as lower educational attainment for women, less economic security, and even an increase in economically motivated crime.
Since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Authority decision, researchers have begun to examine how these policy shifts are reshaping economic and demographic patterns. Early evidence suggests that immigration trends are changing, with states that have enacted blanket abortion bans experiencing higher outflows than comparable states that have maintained access.
On average, these states lost about 4.9 residents per 10,000 people each quarter in the year following Mr. Dobbs, and the decline was most pronounced among young people and single-person households.
Other indicators suggest similar behavioral changes. One study found that the proportion of high-achieving women applying to colleges in states with blanket abortion bans decreased after the ruling, suggesting a talent drain and long-term effects on local economies.
The meaning of “desirable location” is evolving
NBER researchers said that beyond their direct impact on reproductive health care, differences in abortion policies can shape how people evaluate the desirability of living in one state versus another.
The housing market provides a useful lens through which to analyze these preferences.
When a location becomes less attractive, it typically manifests itself in weaker demand, slower price growth, lower rents, and higher vacancy rates. Conversely, locations that gain favor tend to have stronger pricing and tighter occupancy.
Researchers have long used house prices and rents to measure how people value an area’s attributes, from natural beauty, climate, and amenities such as transportation access to disadvantages such as pollution, crime, noise, and proximity to power plants. Abortion policy may be emerging as another factor shaping housing demand.
Zillow Census Data Reveals Post-Dobbs Housing Relocations
Prior to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Authority decision in June 2022, housing market trends in states that would enact anti-abortion laws and states that would protect access to abortion were largely in lockstep, including disruptions caused by the pandemic. Rental prices, home prices and vacancy rates followed similar trajectories in both groups from 2021 to early 2022, researchers said. This parallel trend provides an important basis for comparison.
The researchers looked at changes before and after Dobbs, analyzing housing outcomes in states that implemented blanket abortion bans versus a weighted group of states that maintained or expanded access.
The underlying assumption is that, absent the policy change, housing markets in ban states would have continued to trend in line with other states.
The analysis utilizes county-level data from Zillow’s inflation-adjusted Rental and Home Price Index and vacancy rates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Metropolitan Housing Vacancy Survey.
Rent falls by up to 4%, vacancies increase in ban states
To examine whether abortion bans are causing these rental market changes, NBER researchers used a statistical approach that compares housing outcomes in counties and metropolitan areas within ban states with market groups in states that maintain access matched based on similar trends prior to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
By anchoring the comparison to parallel trajectories before 2022, this method identifies how the situation has changed after the policy shift, while accounting for fundamental differences between regions.
The results show measurable impact.
The study found that a blanket abortion ban would cause rents to fall by 2.2% on average between July 2022 and June 2025, with the impact widening to around 4% in the latest year of data.
The researchers note that this magnitude is comparable to the rent effects observed from large changes in environmental factors such as air quality and noise.
At the same time, rental vacancy rates in ban states rose by an average of 1.1 percentage points, and recently rose to 1.8 percentage points. This is a notable change in a market where vacancy rates typically hover between 5% and 7%.
The effects on home values and homeowner vacancy rates appear to be smaller and less precisely measured, even though they are in the same direction.
This disconnect between the rental and home ownership markets is consistent with basic economics. Renters can adapt to policy changes faster due to lower moving costs, but homeowners face greater friction when buying and selling.
New transition dynamics taking shape
The researchers said these changes in the housing market are consistent with previous evidence showing that abortion bans contribute to an exodus of people from affected states. The findings suggest that reproductive rights policy is not just a social issue, but an economic issue that shapes the perceived value of a place.
When a state restricts access to abortion, it can effectively make it less attractive to certain households. This change in perception appears to be reflected in falling rents and rising vacancy rates.
This effect is particularly pronounced among younger, more mobile adults, a group that is more likely to move and to factor abortion access into location decisions. For these renters, state policy becomes increasingly important as part of a broader calculation that includes jobs, affordability, and quality of life.
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