May 12, 2005 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Differences in women's earnings by educational level
Female college graduates earned about 76 percent more than women with only a high school diploma in 2004.
[Chart data—TXT]
This difference in earnings by education has increased sharply since 1979, when female college graduates earned 43 percent more than female high school graduates.
Women workers without a high school diploma who worked full-time in 2004 had median usual weekly earnings of $334. Those with a high school diploma and no college earned $488; those with some college but no degree earned $553 and those with an associate degree earned $608.
Full-time women workers who held a bachelor's degree in 2004 had median usual weekly earnings of $792. Master's degree holders had earnings of $957, while the figure for professional degree holders was $1,055 and for doctoral degree holders was $1,188.
These data on earnings are from the Current Population
Survey. Earnings data in this article are median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers age 25 and over. For more information see
"Women in the Labor Force: A
Databook," BLS Report 985.
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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