Workforce & Economic Impacts

Worker well-being is central to businesses’ ability to grow their competitiveness, innovate within their industry, and meet the needs of stakeholders, including shareholders.

The Business Case for Abortion Access

We regularly hear from businesses that their workforce is anxious about the impact of abortion bans and want to see their employers take meaningful steps to ensure access to reproductive healthcare for themselves and their families.

Without federal legislation for protection, there has been a rapidly changing landscape of state policies restricting worker access to seek the reproductive healthcare and services they need. This is especially pressing for multi-state corporations as they must ensure that their workforce can live without fear for their family’s safety, security, and prevent loss of opportunities.

Abortion bans have led to nearly 1 in 5 patients traveling out of state for abortion care. Recent restrictions and laws criminalizing travel across states and receiving abortion medication by mail attempts to punish employers who help their workers access care exacerbate the issue making it difficult for employers to prevent widespread harm. Government overreach, judicial interference, diminishing data privacy, and threats to interstate commerce create significant liability for corporate America.

Where You Do Business Matters

Restricting access to comprehensive reproductive health care affects business efforts to build diverse and inclusive workforces, recruit top talent across states, and ensure the well-being of communities and the economy.

Hidden Value:

The Business Case For Reproductive Health

The Business Case for Reproductive Health illuminates the link between access to comprehensive reproductive health care and business performance.

In the year following the Dobbs decision, 26.1 million women of reproductive age are living under jurisdiction that has eliminated or severely restricted abortion access – a form of healthcare that one in four women may need over the course of their careers according to Guttmacher.

Employer Benefit Trends

Many employers have been able to expand the benefits provided to employees, but they may be subject to challenge or nullified state legislation. Only Congress can create a 50-state solution, putting an end to uncertainty and unnecessary red tape across state lines.

  • A KFF survey of employer health benefits shows that 28% of large U.S. companies have limited or no access to abortion under company health insurance.

  • Mercer explores gaps and opportunities in employer support for women’s health in 2022, as well as recommendations for enhancements in 2023 and beyond.

  • In January 2023, the Health and Human Services department of the Biden/Harris administration released a report indicating their commitment to keeping abortion accessible. In 2022, they reaffirmed protections for providers in Medicare-participating emergency departments to perform life-saving abortion services as stabilizing care in emergencies. They also called on states to apply for modifications in their Medicare packages to provide increased access to reproductive health care.

  • Federally, abortions are not covered for those on Medicaid unless one’s life is endangered. But six states require nearly all private insurance plans to cover abortion, and sixteen states use their own funds to ensure that people enrolled in Medicaid have access to abortion. (NWLC, 2021)

  • This interactive resource from the ACLU allows you to select your state and read about insurance policies there.

Disproportionate Impact on Workers

Low-income workers are disproportionately impacted as they are often benefits-ineligible. Before the Dobbs decision was released, economists provided clear evidence that overturning Roe would prevent large numbers of women experiencing unintended pregnancies—many of whom are low-income and financially vulnerable mothers—from obtaining desired abortions.

Talent Pipelines & Workforce Mobility

  • By a margin of 2:1, workers prefer to live in a state where abortion is legal and accessible rather than illegal and inaccessible.

  • Nearly half of working adults say they are only open to moving to abortion friendly states.

  • Nearly two thirds of young Americans report that legal access to reproductive healthcare, including abortion access, informs where they choose to live. 

  • Students are considering abortion access as they choose where to go to college and one-third of parents say they would not send their child to college in a state where abortion is illegal.

  • Workers under age 40 agree that access to abortion is a workplace issue. 

  • 44% of US women said they would leave their current job if their employer’s views on reproductive rights didn’t align with their own. That number jumped to 56% for millennial women, who are the largest generational cohort in the workforce. 

  • Nearly a quarter of women workers say they will not work in a state that limits or bans access to abortion, almost three times as many who say they will only work in a state that limits or bans access to abortion. 

  • Recent research from Lean In indicates that more senior employees and managers are more likely to consider switching jobs in light of the overturn of Roe, and women and men of color are about twice as likely to consider switching jobs as white men and women.

  • Companies that support abortion access saw an 8% uptick in job applications. 

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, economic losses from increased reproductive care restrictions, including labor force impact and earnings, cost the economy an estimated $172 billion annually (up from $146 billion)

Institute for Women's Policy Research

Broader Healthcare Impacts

The states poised to ban or severely limit abortion already tend to have limited access to health care, poor health outcomes, and fewer safety net programs in place for mothers and children. These bans further compound racial disparities in maternal health.