Gaps persist for women in management
With the right spin it could be said that women still have an opportunity to move up in corporate America. The results of a recently released study of women in the management field in the United States show that even though women make up nearly half of the workforce at 49 percent, the percentage of women managers in that workforce is only 40 percent. Other gaps exist as well and one of the most prominent is that on average, female managers only earn 81 cents for every dollar that their male counterpart earns. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released these results in September 2010 with data compiled from the U.S. Census Bureau through 2007.
Where women exceed the norm
While men hold the majority of management positions, women had made some gains from an earlier study completed in 2000. The percentage of women managers had increased by 1 percentage point (a 2.78 percent increase) and wages had increased by 2 cents from 79 cents per dollar earned by men. There are also areas where women managers outnumber men. These include health care and social assistance (70 percent of managers are women), educational services (57 percent of managers are women) and financial activities (50 percent) where women are at parity with men.
It is interesting to note that the GAO, a government department, released its report on women’s earning ability compared to men in the same month that Reach Advisors, a New York-based strategy and research firm focused on emerging shifts in the consumer landscape—also using data from the U.S. Census Bureau—showed that childless women ages 22-30 were making $1.08 for every dollar made by their male counterpart in the top 366 metropolitan areas of the United States. Some locations were far above the norm with Atlanta, Georgia, being the best place for women to earn more than men; women there earned $1.21 compared to their male counterpart.
How do women make up the difference and earn as much as men? An examination of the characteristics of the women who do earn as much or more than men is quite revealing as is the differences in earning power of women of different educational backgrounds. The women who make more than their male counterparts in 366 metropolitan areas have college degrees, and college is making a big difference. Women graduating from high school are 14 percent more likely than men to go to college, and then female college students are 50 percent more likely to graduate or earn an advanced degree. With higher education comes higher pay. Women with a college degree earn about 76 percent more than women with only a high school diploma, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Conflicting information
While the GAO study certainly paints a dire picture for women’s progress in gaining parity with men in earning ability and positions in management, other reports paint a different picture. Catalyst, a nonprofit organization focused on inclusive workplaces and opportunities for women, reports that women comprise 51.4 percent of the managerial, professional and related positions in the United States. Catalyst's data comes from the Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Table 11: Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity," Annual Averages 2009 (2010). This was a report that the GAO chose not to use. Despite contradictory studies and data, and disagreement about exact figures, gaps still persist for women in management and in earning ability. There is sufficient evidence, though, that a college degree and advanced degrees help to make up the difference in both management position attainment and earning power.
