An ecological analysis of the socioeconomic status of women having abortions in Manhattan

Since 1974 the number of abortions in New York City's borough of Manhattan has exceeded the number of births within its resident population.Manhattan's rate of abortions has been nearly twice that of the other city boroughs during the decade of the 1970's. Most investigations of abortion have focused on the attitudes of individual abortion patients as a means of explaining the growing number of pregnancy terminations in New York and throughout the United States. This study seeks to place this earlier research in ecological perspective by examining the social conditions in Manhattan associated with its spatial concentration of induced abortions. Data from the City Health Department and the U.S. Census were combined to describe abortion rates and status of women among New York's 339 health areas. A factor analysis of this data base using a varimax solution revealed that the most prominent areas of abortion usage cluster among populations of well-educated, professionally employed women living in communities on Manhattan's East Side and Greenwich Village. Single marital status and high population turnover were also found to covary with abortion. Results of this analysis suggest that the attitudes found among abortion patients in previous studies may be fostered by the compendium of pressures from single parenthood, upward mobility and short-term social relationships