The Shape of an Unequal Wage
In the United States, men earn more than women—quite a bit more, as it happens. Currently, the “gender wage gap” is about 78 cents to the dollar—that is, for every dollar an average man earns in the US, an average woman earns only 78 cents. (This project explores data for full-time workers; the wage gap among them as a group is about the same as for all employed people, though there may be variations in particular industries or professions.)
Women and the Pay Gap
Happily, some professions are more equal than others. Gender breakdown plays a role. The chart to the leftabove shows the and the for each of the Census’ industry categories. Unsurprisingly, most female-dominated industries do better. For example, healthcare support and office administration are staffed mostly by women, and pay them better than average—though, still not equally to men.
Industries with few women tend towards wage equality as well.
Far and away the least equal industry is the law—which is also the highest earning. Other high-earning industries tend to be near or above average.
Among industries, income does not correspond to gender proportions, as neither high-earning nor low-earning industries group towards either end.
Industries, however, don’t tell the whole story. For that, we’ll want to look at some individual professions within industries and see them in detail.
The Law
Law is a great example: paralegals—nearly all of whom are women—make less than half the salary of (mostly male) lawyers.
Computers and Mathematics
Education
Healthcare Practitioners and Technicians
Healthcare Support
Construction and Extraction (Mining)
Construction and mining are male-dominated fields—so much so that there are too few women roof bolters to even estimate their salary or its relation to men’s earnings in the profession.