The Best and Worst States for Women to Live and Work ...

The study cross-referenced factors such as the gender pay gap, political representation in the state legislature, equality in education, accessibility to health insurance, reproductive rights and the number of incidents of violence against women at the hands of men. The rankings from each individual factor were combined to determine an overall score.

According to the site, “states that scored poorly in terms of political representation also did badly on factors such as equal pay and women’s reproductive rights, suggesting that the quality of women’s lives is somewhat determined by inequality in government.”
The study’s findings concluded that among the worst states for women to live are Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah, Mississippi and South Carolina. Oklahoma ranked the lowest, a result which MoveHub attributes to recent laws making abortion less accessible to women causing the state to rate poorly on the reproductive rights scale. Oklahoma is notorious for its rather conservative approach to abortion. They even require “women seeking abortions to get the written permission of the fetus’ father.”
On a more positive note, Hawaii, Vermont, Minnesota, Illinois and Maryland were ranked among the best states for women to reside in 2017. Hawaii was deemed the #1 state in the U.S. when it came to women’s health and all around well being.

Only 6% of the Aloha state’s female population does not have health insurance AND they “produced the lowest number of incidents of women being murdered by men – 0.14 per 100,000 females.”

As if we needed another reason to love Hawaii.

Though the majority of us don’t have the luxury or the means to move cross-country at the moment, it’s nice to know that at least one of our 50 states is doing their best to protect women’s rights in anyway they can.

How does your state stack up?