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MARCH 2010

Women in the Workforce

The number of women in the United States workforce has increased dramatically in the last several decades, and more women are becoming primary or significant income-earners for their families. Still, many women are faced with the challenges of gender pay gap, breaking out of traditional job patterns, and providing for their families in light of an economic downturn. See below for statistics on these issues.

Women's Earnings and Pay Gaps

  • Women are now half (49.9 percent as of July 2009) of all payroll workers in the U.S, compared to 1969, when they only comprised a third (35.3 percent).

  • Wives bring home half or more of family earnings; the share of all working wives earning as much or as more as their husbands is 38.1 percent.

  • Women continue to be paid 23 cents less than men for every dollar earned in the U.S. economy.

  • 41 percent of the pay gap is not attributable to the characteristics of women or the nature of their jobs. For disabled women or women of color, the pay gap in relation to white men is greater than it is for white women.

  • College-educated females with the same educational background, grades, major, characteristics (race, marital status, etc.) earn 5 percent less than male colleagues for the same job the first year out of school. The gap widens to 12 percent if the woman is still on par with her male associates a decade later.

Earnings and Race

  • 2.4 percent of the pay gap between genders is attributable to race.

  • In white families, over a third (37 percent) of working wives earn as much or more than their husbands.

  • In African American families, over 50 percent earn as much or more, and in Hispanic families, nearly 36 percent earn as much or more.

Women as Breadwinners

  • Nearly two-thirds (62.8 percent) are breadwinners or co-breadwinners. Almost 4 in 10 mothers (39.3 percent) are primary breadwinners.

  • Only roughly 20 percent of families with children have a male breadwinner and female homemaker arrangement, compared with 44.7 percent in 1975.

  • Men have accounted for three out of every four jobs lost since the recession hit. Two million wives are earning income for their families while their unemployed spouses look for work.

Women's Jobs

  • For the 20 most common jobs, only four are shared by both men and women: retail salesperson (2.5 percent women, 2 percent men), supervisors of retail stores (2.3 percent women and 2.6 men), all other managers (1.9 percent women and 2.9 percent men), and cooks (1.1 percent women and 1.5 percent men).

  • Women account for nearly 36 percent of engineers, 36 percent of lawyers and judges, a little under a third (roughly 32 percent) of physicians and surgeons, and about 38 percent of managers.

  • Women remain dominant in more "traditional female" jobs, making up nearly 98 percent of kindergarten and preschool teachers, 97 percent of dental hygienists, 96 percent of all secretarial and administrative assistants, and 95.5 percent of all child care workers.

 

SOURCE: Shriver, Maria and the Center for American Progress, (Editors: Heather Boushey and Ann O'Leary.) "The Shriver Report: A Woman"s Nation Changes Everything." October 16, 2009.

Disclaimer: Although we try to use the most credible sources, we are not responsible for any incorrect findings.

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