Katha:
I cannot answer all those questions, but I can provide you with come cross national comparisons of the acceptability of abortion, by sex and occupation. The data come from the World Values Survey (1991) - a survey similar to GSS except that the same questions were asked in several different countries. One of the questions was whether abortion is acceptable. Respondents replied on a scale ranging from 1= never to 10= always. Hence, the higher the number, the greater the acceptablity of abortion.
I run a simple factorial ANOVA comparing mean scores for the acceptability of abortion in selected countries, broken down by occupation and sex. A full output, saved in an Excel 2.1 file is attached to this posting. Below I present abbreviated results by country, comparing professionals to manual workers (males and female) in each country.
Again, the higher the number the greater the average acceptability of abortion in a particular group. The data are for 1990-91.
M>F - means that abortion is more acceptable for males than for females in that group F>M - means that abbortion is more acceptable for females than for males in that group F=M - means that acceptablity rate is about the same for males and females in that group
FRANCE professionals: 5.36 F>M manual workers: 4.48 F>M
BRITAIN professionals: 4.82 M>F manual workers: 4.1 M>F
W. GERAMANY professionals: 5.86 F=M manual workers: 4.21 M>F
ITALY professionals: 4.41 M>F manual workers: 4.68 F>M
NETHERLANDS professionals: 6.29 M>F manual workers: 4.86 M>F
SPAIN professionals: 5.21 F>M manual workers: 4.9 F>M
US professionals: 4.75 F>M manual workers: 3.63 M>F
CANADA professional: 5.52 F>M manula workers: 4.61 M>F
MEXICO professionals: 4.68 F>M manual workers: 3.63 M>F
NORWAY professionals: 5.11 M=F manual workers 4.91 F>M
SWEDEN professionals - no data manual workers: 5.36 M>F
ALL COUNTRIES: professionals: 5.11 F>M manula workers: 4.48 M>F
As you can see abortion is more acceptable for professionals than for manual workers in most countries, except Italy, where it is more acceptable for manual workers. Generally, professional women find abortion more acceptable than professional men, but there are few exceptions (Italy, the Netherlands, where abortion is more acceptable for males, and also West Germany and Norway where both sexes have about same acceptability rates.
As far as manual workers are concerned, males find abortion more aceptable than females, except in France, Italy, Spain, and Norway, where abortion is more acceptable for working class females than for working class males.
Finally, the US has one of the lowest abortion acceptance rates (4.06 on average) - only Mexico is lower on abortion acceptance (3.85), while all other countries are higher. Abortion is most acceptable in Sweden (5.39 on average).
If you have more questions about methodology, please feel free to write me privately.
Regards,
Wojtek Sokolowski
As Yoshie showed, with her posting of stats from Catholics
>for a Free choice, abortion is a very low priority for the vast majority
>of Catholics, and very few Catholics (10-13 percent) are totally
>anti-choice. Do we know that that percent is working-class? I don't
>think so! I'll bet most of them are just old.
> Similarly, the evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants who make up
>the religious right are often discussed as if they are working class,
>but are they? I don't know. Do you? Promise-Keepers say their members
>have a median income of $48,000. Not exactly downtrodden.
> .
> As for
>"choice " being a word that turns off working class people, here too I'd
>like some evidence. Working class people are, after all, Americans: they
>shop in great big supermarkets that boast of the many varieties of every
>kind of product; they want to choose their own doctors; to choose their
>own religion (lots of church-hopping),and their own spouses, their own
>style of dress, car, TV programming, fast-food burger, pornographic
>magazines, vacation and home addresses. Working class people are just as
>individualistic as other Americans: they don't like govt (or their
>neighbors) telling them what they can and can't do in their private
>lives.
> Other politicized uses of the word "choice" have not harmed those
>causes: school choice for example (letting parents choose their child's
>public school instead of having to send the child to the zoned one) is a
>very popular cause.
> so IF "choice" is a bad way to phrase the right to abortion, the
>answer cannot be a general working-class resistance to the idea of
>choice,but something more specific: THIS is not a choice they believe
>women should have.
> So after you explain why you believe the anti-choice movement is
>largely one of working class people, you can explain why working class
>people in particular believe women should not have this particular
>choice.
>
>best, katha
>