Between 1994 and 2000, abortion rates for working-class women rose, while rates for wealthier women declined. Women who are Black are more than three times as likely as women who are white to have an abortion, and women who are Hispanic are two-and-a-half times as likely, the institute reported.

At the same time, implementation of the Clinton administration’s policy of "ending welfare as we know it," resulted in a decline in the proportion of women of reproductive age covered by Medicaid. The proportion of women with no insurance at all increased. The result is that working-class women who are poor are often shouldering the full costs of abortions. This medical procedure on average costs $372. It can go as high as $4,000.

The Guttmacher Institute says that women, on average, give three reasons for choosing abortion. Seventy-five percent said that having a baby would interfere with work, school, or other responsibilities; 66 percent cited their inability to afford a child; and 50 percent said they did not want to be a single parent.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of women in the work force continued to rise by the end of the last decade. In 2000, about 60 percent of all women were working, compared to 75 percent of all men. Nearly three-quarters of women with children are working outside the home. Since 1975, there has been a more than 25 percent increase in the number of women with children under three years old who are employed.

The percentage of income derived from wages for single women heading up households went from 41 percent in 1979 to 73 percent in 2000.

Economic reports now show that with recession conditions since 2000, women have been among those hardest hit by rising unemployment rates. More than twice as many women have experienced layoffs than in the recession of the early 1990s.  
 
 
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