Paprerback, 240 Pages: When politicians like Paul Ryan and Ross Douthat publicly call for more U.S. babies, they echo a decades-long concern of policymakers worried about an aging workforce, sluggish consumer demand, and economic stagnation—all framed in technical terms like “age structure” and “entitlement crisis.” While many feminists blame religious conservatism for attacks on reproductive freedom, Birth Strike reveals a deeper battle: elites want a growing workforce raised through maximum unpaid women’s labor and minimal employer costs, while women—facing inadequate childcare, family leave, healthcare, and male participation—are quietly refusing to reproduce at the rate economic planners desire. With U.S. birth rates at historic lows, this spontaneous “birth strike” highlights the untapped power of women’s collective refusal and points toward new strategies to demand reproductive justice and radically improve the working conditions of parenthood.