© Copyright 2001 by the Wyoming Department of Employment, Research & Planning
BLS Releases Highlights of
Women’s Earnings in 2000
by: Mark A. Harris, Sociologist, Ph.D.
“At all levels of education, women have fared better
over time with respect to earnings growth than have men.”
Gender differences in earnings remain an issue of
concern for a large segment of the population. Although women have gained ground
in earnings relative to men over the last several decades, large gender gaps in
earnings remain. The following article contains excerpts from Highlights
of Women’s Earnings in 2000.1
This report is based on earnings data from the Current Population Survey (CPS).
The CPS is a nationally representative monthly survey of approximately 50,000
households conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. The earnings data are collected on one-fourth of the CPS monthly
sample. As such, the data give broad level coverage of comparisons by gender.
Full-time Workers
Among women, 45- to 54-year-olds had the highest [weekly] earnings ($565),
followed by 35- to 44-year-olds ($520). Men’s earnings also peaked among 45- to
54-year-olds ($777). The difference between women’s and men’s earnings is larger
among middle-aged and older workers than it is among younger ones. For example,
among workers aged 45 to 54, women earned 72.7 percent as much as men did and,
among those 55 to 64 years old, the women’s-to-men’s earnings ratio was just
68.5 percent. In contrast, among those 25 to 34 years old, women’s earnings were
81.9 percent of those of men, and 20- to 24-year-old women earned 91.9 percent
as much as did men.2
Between 1979 and 2000, the earnings gap between women and men narrowed for most
major age groups. The women’s-to-men’s earnings ratio among 35- to 44-year-olds,
for example, increased from 58.3 percent in 1979 to 71.1 percent in 2000, and
that for 45- to 54-year-olds rose from 56.9 percent to 72.7 percent.
3
The ratio of female-to-male earnings varied by State, from a high of 89.3
percent in the District of Columbia to a low of 66.8 percent in Wyoming. The
differences among the States reflect in part variations in the occupation,
industry, and age composition of State labor forces. In addition, sampling error
in the State estimates is considerably larger than it is for the national data.
4
Women’s share of employment in occupations typified by high earnings has grown.
In 2000, 47 percent of full time wage and salary workers in executive,
administrative, and managerial occupations were women, up from 34.2 percent in
1983 (the first year for which comparable data are available). Over the same
time period, women’s share of employment in professional specialty occupations
[e.g., engineers, registered nurses, pharmacists, lawyers] rose from 46.8
percent to 51.9 percent.5
In both the managerial and professional occupational categories, women and men
tend to work in different specific occupations. In the professional specialty
occupations, where women earned the most, they were much less likely than men to
be employed in some of the highest paying occupations, such as engineers and
mathematical and computer scientists. Women were more likely to work in
relatively lower paying professional occupations, such as teachers (except
college and university) and registered nurses.6
Median weekly earnings of full-time workers ages 25 and over without a high
school diploma were considerably below those persons with college degrees. Among
women, those without a high school diploma earned $303 per week, compared with
$760 for those with college degrees. Among men, [high] school dropouts had
earnings of $409 a week, compared with $1,022 for college graduates.
7
At all levels of education, women have fared better over time with respect to
earnings growth than have men. Although both women and men without a high school
diploma have experienced a decline in inflation-adjusted earnings since 1979,
women’s earnings have fallen significantly less—9.8 percent, compared with a
26.7-percent drop for men. Earnings for women with college degrees have
increased by 30.4 percent since 1979 on an inflation-adjusted basis, while those
of male college graduates rose by only 16.7 percent.8
Part-time Workers
Median weekly earnings of female part-time workers were $177, or 36 percent of
the median for women who worked full-time. The earnings of male part-time
workers ($156) were somewhat lower than those of female part-timers. This is
largely because male part-time workers, unlike their female counterparts, are
highly concentrated in the youngest age group, which typically have low
earnings. About 56 percent of male part-time workers were 16 to 25 years old,
compared with 32 percent of female part-timers.9
Workers Paid by the Hour
About 63 percent of women and 58 percent of men employed in wage and salary jobs
were paid by the hour. Women who worked at such jobs had median hourly earnings
of $9.03 in 2000. This was 83.2 percent of the hourly median for men ($10.85).
10
About 5 percent of women who were paid hourly rates in 2000 reported hourly
earnings at or below the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $5.15. This compares
with approximately 3 percent of men in jobs paid by the hour.
11
Additional information on earnings by gender and other employment related issues
can be obtained from the following sources:
U.S. Department of Labor:
http://www.dol.gov/dol/wb (Women’s Bureau Site). There are numerous
publications indexed and linked to this site covering a broad range of women’s
issues.
Wyoming Department of Employment, Research & Planning:
http://lmi.state.wy.us/wfdemog/toc.htm. Contains Wyoming specific
comparative information between male and female earnings by age and industry for
the period 1997-2000.
1 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2000, Report 952,
August 2001,
http://www.bls.gov/pdf/cpswom2000.pdf (October 3, 2001).
2 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2000, Table 1, p. 7
and Table 8, p. 19.
3 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2000, Table 13, pp.
24-25.
4 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2000, Table 4, p.
15.
5 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2000, Table 2, p. 8.
6 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2000, Table 3, pp.
9-13.
7 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2000, Table 7, p.
18.
8 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2000, Table 15, pp.
28-29 and Chart 3, p. 4.
9 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2000, Table 5, p.
16.
10 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2000, Table 4, p.
15.10, p. 21, Table 11, p. 22, Table 16, p. 30, and Table 17, p. 32.
11 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2000, Table 12, p.
23, Table 18, p. 35, and Chart 4, p. 4.
Table of Contents | Labor Market Information | Wyoming Job Network | Send Us Mail
These pages
designed by Julie Barnish.
Last modified on
by Krista R. Shinkle.