The Only 4 Places in the U.S. Where Women Make More Money Than Men
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The gender wage gap is far from bridged. But there are a handful of places in the U.S. where women now tend to out-earn men in similar positions, a new study finds.
The states where women actually make more than men for comparable work are clustered in the Northeast, according to PayScale's 2016 Gender Pay Gap report, which is drawn from around 1.8 million employee surveys completed between October 2014 and October 2016.
In Connecticut, where women see the greatest relative advantage, they make 1.6% more than men with the same education, work experience, company size, skills, and other factors. Here's how the top spots for women rank:
- Connecticut - 1.6%
- Vermont - 0.6%
- Washington D.C. - 0.5%
- Rhode Island - 0.2%
That 1.6% advantage looks particularly puny when you look at places where men make more than women -- and where, it turns out, the gender-based advantage is significantly greater. In fact, in the five states with the widest overall "controlled" gender wage gap, men came out ahead -- and there were actually increases in the gap compared with last year's report.
Those states are:
- Louisiana - 7.4% (up from 6% in 2015)
- Alabama - 7.1% (vs. 5.7%)
- West Virginia - 6.5% (vs. 5.4%)
- Oklahoma - 5.1% (vs. 4.6%)
- Iowa - 4.8% (vs. 4.7%)
The pay gap between the sexes is much higher when not accounting for job title, company size, and other factors. In such an "uncontrolled" analysis, men earn 27.1% more than women, on average -- in part because, PayScale's found, women are less likely than men to be in management roles.