was spending went down from 36.4% of the total health expenditures in 1980 to 15.3 percent in 2003; conversely, individuals' contributions increased from 23.2% to 60.2% during the same time period. As stated above, women make less on average than men in China thus leaving women particularly vulnerable to the rising costs of healthcare. One elderly women interviewed by Liu stated that she knew many older women who when confronted with the prospect of an expensive medical procedure opted to commit suicide rather than burden their families with the cost. In addition to bearing gender disadvantage, rural women suffer even more from insufficient healthcare due to increasing spatial disparity in China. Based on studies by Xiaobo Zhang et al., healthcare facilities have been significantly scarcer in rural areas. In 1980, hospital beds and healthcare personnel per 1000 people in cities were 4.57 and 7.82, respectively, compared to 1.48 and 1.81 in rural areas. Such disparity has grown over years. Moreover, infant mortality rate in rural areas has been significantly higher than in cities, with the gap reaching 2.1 in 2000. The ratio of female to male IMR increased dramatically from 0.9 to 1.3 over the same period. More seriously, female IMR in rural areas rose from 34.9 to 36.7 in the period of 1990–2000, as families in rural areas often have a stronger boy preference. Women's health outcomes Reproductive health Prenatal health One of the aspects of women's health to suffer the most as the economy shifts to a free market system is reproductive health. As health firm privatize those firms are less likely to provide free preventative health, and as a result they have discontinued the practice of providing regular reproductive health examinations. Due to this from 1997 to 2007 only 38 or 39 percent of women are getting the reproductive examinations that they need. There is also a widening gap between urban and rural women with regards to their respective health indicators. Health indicators show that in 2003 96.4% of urban women vs. 85.6% of rural women visited a doctor during their pregnancy. In urban areas children under 5 had a mortality rate of 14 per 1,000 again vs. 39 per 1,000 so children born in rural China were twice as likely to die before the age of 5. There are also more traditional gender values that reduce women's access to healthcare. In one study it was shown