Jobs in Which Women's Average Earnings Are Not Greatly Lower Than Men's

You probably have read about how female workers tend to earn less than males in the same occupation. The reason for this wage difference is the subject of a lot of controversy-is it discrimination, the "mommy track" lifestyle choices of some women (which may include part-time work or periods of absence from the workforce), or some combination of factors? Some researchers have identified jobs where women actually earn more than men, and others have pointed to benefits (most notably maternity leave) that help offset the differences in pay. But in plain dollar terms, the decennial Census and the Current Population Survey seem to show that in most occupations women can expect to earn less than men.

If you're looking for a high-paying job and you are a woman-or a man who feels more comfortable in an environment where pay is equitable-you may want to know which jobs have the smallest gap between the dollar earnings of men and women. With that goal in mind, we used Census 2000 figures to identify the subset of the 250 best-paying jobs in which women's earnings were at least 70 percent of men's. (Sad to say, 70 percent is a "good" ratio.) Unlike the OES figures that we use in other parts of this book, the Census 2000 figures are based on total weekly earnings. Although these figures are also a few years older than the figures that we use elsewhere, trends in male-female wage differences are slow to change, so the female-to-male ratio for an occupation is probably still pretty close. Nevertheless, to avoid implying more precision than actually exists, we rounded the percentage figures to the nearest whole numbers. You also should know that Census figures were available for only 97 of the 250 best-paying jobs, so some jobs that do not appear here may actually have a good female-to-male wage ratio. Don't assume that a job has a bad ratio just because it doesn't appear on this list.