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Many people think a low-wage worker is a young adult making minimum wage to earn a bit of pocket money or save up for college. While these workers make up some of the low-wage workforce, the vast majority of workers do not fit that mold. Nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women, over half are over the age of 25, and most do not have a spouse’s income to rely on, according to the National Women’s Law Center.
Low wage work has myriad effects on a woman’s life, including the decreased ability to get an education, spend time with family and friends, budget money properly to gain financial security, and to attend to personal health. This last point, though crucial, is particularly under-discussed, yet there are many ways low-paid work can limit one’s access to health care — and reproductive health care, specifically. Women’s access to preventative health care, birth control, abortion, and the like are limited by their paychecks, work schedules, and sometimes by their employer’s religious beliefs.
When money is tight, purchases considered “non-essential” are often cut first. Movie tickets and dinners out are far less important than are groceries and rent. But many women feel that birth control can qualify as non-essential, or at least temporarily so. Certainly most people with uteruses will not die if they do not have hormonal birth control or condoms. An unwanted or unplanned pregnancy, however, is a major financial burden—one that many cannot afford. I recently read a piece in which a woman recounts her decision to buy groceries instead of her birth control, and she ended up pregnant that month.
Luckily, the Affordable Care Act has made great strides in helping women obtain free birth control and to maintain autonomy over their uteruses more generally. Yet, the ACA is under constant attack. Just last month, the Supreme Court ruled that a federal tax credit could be used to help low-income women purchase federally-funded healthcare. Had this decision been different, millions of women could have lost access to preventative healthcare because trips to the gynecologist would have required a restrictive co-pay.
Even as this ruling makes gyno visits more affordable, many of the workers who need to see the doctor cannot find time to do so. One common practice in low-paid industries is to give employees their schedules just days in advance, meaning that making appointments can be impossible. Without regular trips to the gynecologist, a woman might be unaware of a reproductive health issue, or might not be able to access prescription birth controls, which could very easily result in pregnancy.
Although abortions are legal by the letter of the law, politicians and employers are making it hard for working women to actually access them: Many bills have been proposed and passed to restrict that access. Abortion clinics are closing all over the country and states are imposing laws about mandatory waiting periods. This is troublesome for all working women. If they need an abortion, they might have to take time off at work in order to get to a far away clinic. Then many must pass the mandatory waiting period before going through the procedure, and sometimes return to work before medically advisable.
Finally, last summer’s Supreme Court ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby allowed employers at religiously affiliated corporations and universities to deny insurance coverage of birth control. Even when a woman has health insurance through her employer, she may still be denied basic coverage because the company disagrees with her choices, and many low-paid women are not be able to pay for birth control without health insurance.
In my opinion, two fundamental aspects of being an independent and liberated woman are the autonomy to make reproductive health decisions and the ability to make a livable wage at work. Many practices at the intersection of reproductive health care and low-wage labor must change to better women’s well-being. Luckily, many organizations work to address specific aspects of this problem. If you’re interested in organizations that works to improve the work lives of women, for example, you might be interested in the work of Women Employed, a Chicago-based non-profit. If you’re interested in the fight for access to reproductive health care, check out the National Women’s Law Center’s project This Is Personal. Ultimately, it’s crucial that we continue to speak out and support the reproductive rights of and access to reproductive health for all women — including low wage workers.