. In fact, research shows access to the pill is responsible for a third of women’s wage gains since the 1960s.
One reason for this disparity is the cost of birth control, particularly for the most effective, long-lasting forms. For instance, it typically costs women over US$1,000 for an IUD and the procedure to insert it, amounting to about one month’s full-time pay for a minimum-wage worker lacking insurance coverage.
Not surprisingly, health insurance makes a difference, and women with coverage are much more likely to use contraceptive care. And yet about 6.2 million women who need contraception lack insurance coverage. Further, this coverage can be denied to millions of employees and their dependents who work for employers claiming a religious or moral objection under a Supreme Court ruling in 2020.
Teens without knowledge about their sexual health are more likely to get pregnant and less likely to work, spiraling them to the bottom of the economic ladder.ACCESS TO ABORTION AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITY Studies show that women who cannot access abortion are three times as likely to fall into poverty as women who obtained abortions.
Denying poor women coverage for abortion under Medicaid contributes to the unintended birth rates that are seven times as high for poor women as for high-income women.