January 24, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Gender pay gap largest in sales, lowest in farm occupations
In 1998, women’s
weekly earnings were lower than men’s for full-time employees across all
broad occupational categories. The widest gap was the 40.2 percent found
in sales occupations. About one in ten women workers were employed in
sales jobs.
![Women's weekly earnings as a percent of men's, by occupational group, 1998 annual averages](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20120924195039im_/http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/2000/jan/wk4/art01.gif) [Chart data—TXT]
The narrowest gap—11.4 percent—was found in the farming, forestry,
and fishing occupations. About one-half of one percent of women employees
were in these job categories.
More than a quarter of women workers were employed in administrative
support occupations. The earnings differential in that occupational group
was 19.3 percent. Overall, women’s median weekly earnings for full-time
wage and salary workers were 76.3 percent of the median earnings for men
in such employment.
These earnings data are a product of the Current
Population Survey. The earnings
data here are the median usual weekly earnings of persons who usually work
full time. For more information, see "Women’s earnings: an
overview," by Mary Bowler in the December 1999 issue of Monthly
Labor Review.
Of interest
Spotlight on Statistics: National Hispanic Heritage Month
In this Spotlight, we take a look at the Hispanic labor force—including labor force participation, employment and unemployment, educational attainment, geographic location, country of birth, earnings, consumer expenditures, time use, workplace injuries, and employment projections.
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