Gender and Economics Stuff
There's an interesting new report (PDF) out on the economic situation of women in different states. It looks at the male/female wage gap as well as what types of jobs women are employed in, how many have health insurance, etc. It does note that men and women tend to work in different industries, which has an effect on the respective wages of men and women:
This might help explain why the District of Columbia is ranked as the best "state" economy for women. Also, DC is just a city--no rural areas here. Urban areas tend to do better with economic equality. Side note: Massachusetts is right up there at number 2. I'm not going to talk about Oklahoma.
The ratings were based on many factors, but one with which we're all familiar is the male/female wage gap. Nationally the typical woman earns 77 cents for every dollar earned by the typical man (using median incomes of full-time, year-round workers). I've heard the argument that this doesn't necessarily mean that women are getting paid less to do the same job--it could be that women tend to have occupations that just pay less than the ones that men tend towards. Maybe so, but there's also this interesting statistic: nationally, 35.5% of women workers are employed in managerial and professional occupations, compared with 28.9% of men. Interesting. Back to the wage gap: DC has the best ratio, at 85.5%, but this has actually declined from a high of 92.4% in 2004. This is due to men's wages increasing faster than women's over the past few years. This is a bummer, but probably preferable to the situation in some states, where the wage gap is improving because wages are going down across the board, with men's pay decreasing faster than women's.
I'm mostly paying attention to the DC data because it's particularly interesting to me: DC has the highest percentage of women in managerial or professional positions, at 52.5% (that's 52.5% of all women workers are professionals, not 52.5% of all professionals are women). But DC ranks 49th in the percentage of women living above the poverty line (82.2%, which ties with New Mexico and is just slightly better than Louisiana at 81.6%). Some interesting contrasts going on here.
Thus, economic growth, or its lack, can affect women and men differently. State economies differ in the degree to which they are concentrated in different industries. States with larger shares of manufacturing and natural resource-based industries seem to constitute more favorable economic environments for men, whereas those with strong public sectors, health and education centers, and financial services seem to create more favorable economic environments for women.
This might help explain why the District of Columbia is ranked as the best "state" economy for women. Also, DC is just a city--no rural areas here. Urban areas tend to do better with economic equality. Side note: Massachusetts is right up there at number 2. I'm not going to talk about Oklahoma.
The ratings were based on many factors, but one with which we're all familiar is the male/female wage gap. Nationally the typical woman earns 77 cents for every dollar earned by the typical man (using median incomes of full-time, year-round workers). I've heard the argument that this doesn't necessarily mean that women are getting paid less to do the same job--it could be that women tend to have occupations that just pay less than the ones that men tend towards. Maybe so, but there's also this interesting statistic: nationally, 35.5% of women workers are employed in managerial and professional occupations, compared with 28.9% of men. Interesting. Back to the wage gap: DC has the best ratio, at 85.5%, but this has actually declined from a high of 92.4% in 2004. This is due to men's wages increasing faster than women's over the past few years. This is a bummer, but probably preferable to the situation in some states, where the wage gap is improving because wages are going down across the board, with men's pay decreasing faster than women's.
I'm mostly paying attention to the DC data because it's particularly interesting to me: DC has the highest percentage of women in managerial or professional positions, at 52.5% (that's 52.5% of all women workers are professionals, not 52.5% of all professionals are women). But DC ranks 49th in the percentage of women living above the poverty line (82.2%, which ties with New Mexico and is just slightly better than Louisiana at 81.6%). Some interesting contrasts going on here.
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