Employment Gains for Women Are in Low-Wage Jobs

Women who worked full-time in 2012 received $37,791 in median income, 77 percent of what men earned, the U.S. Census Bureau said in a report Sept. 17. That percentage has changed little since 2007. The number of men working full-time rose by 1 million from 2011 to 2012, while the change for women wasn’t statistically significant, according to the bureau’s data.

One of the reasons the wage gap continues to be what it is between men and women has to do with the lack of quality jobs that are available. Gains in employment have been largely in low-paying industries like in-home health care, housekeeping, food preparation, and retail, jobs that traditionally have been filled by women more easily. According to Bloomberg, a study by the National Women’s Law Center using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that “about 60 percent of the increase in employment for women from 2009 to 2012 was in jobs that pay less than $10.10 an hour, compared with 20 percent for men.”

Photo: TheArches

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