Fact Sheet
General Facts on Women and Job Based Health
According to Meet the US Workforce of the Future, the labor force is becoming more diverse, older and more female. Today, those changing labor force demographics are already evident in terms of the increased number of working women.
Women have a leading role in the majority of families' health care. Most caregivers are women, and mothers in particular are the primary health care decision makers for their children. Therefore, women need adequate knowledge and tools to satisfy their multiple roles as decision makers and consumers of health care.
Women as Major Health Care Consumers
- Ninety-one percent of women aged 18-64 had health insurance in 2022. The remaining 9 percent -- which translates into 9 million women -- had no health benefit coverage.
- Twenty-two percent of women aged 18-64 obtained insurance from public programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, CHAMPUS, and Tricare. Seventy-eight percent had private insurance.
- Private insurance was obtained mainly through employment-based plans. Sixty-three percent of all women ages 18 to 64 had employer-sponsored insurance, either in their own names or as dependents, 49 percent through private-sector jobs and 15 percent through government jobs.
- Women utilize more health care than men, in part because of their need for reproductive services. In 2021, women ages 18 to 44 incurred health expenses that were more than 65 percent higher than men in the same age group.
Women spend roughly twice as much time per day caring for children, other family members, and people outside the home then men.
Women with Health Insurance in Their Own Names
In 2022 39 percent of women aged 18-64, or 39 million women, had employment-based coverage in their own name. Twenty-nine million, or 29 percent of all women aged 18-64, had employment-based coverage in their own name from a private-sector job.