Fact Sheet 2003

Professional Women: Vital Statistics

General Statistics

• The number of working women has risen from 5.1 million in 1900, to 18.4 million in 1950, and 62.7 million in 2002. While women accounted for 18% of the labor force in 1900, in 2002 women were 47% of the labor force.1
• While in 1900 only 20.4% of all women worked, in 2002, 60% worked.2
• Almost 73% of working women had white collar occupations in 2002, a percentage that is expected to increase.3
• Women are the majority of workers in the occupational category expected to grow most rapidly: the professional and related occupations.4
• Labor force participation has increased most dramatically among married women.5
• Today most mothers - even those with the youngest children - participate in the labor force.6
• Women's labor force participation rates will continue to increase.7

Occupational Distribution

• While women are the majority of professional employees, their occupational distribution remains different from men.
• 93% of registered nurses and 83% of all elementary school teachers employed in 2002 were women, compared with less than 11% of all engineers and 4% of all airline pilots and navigators.8
• Still, the different distribution of men and women among specific professional occupations was less pronounced in 2002 than in 1985. The percentage of technical writers who were female increased from 36% to 55% between 1985 and 2002. Female computer operations and systems researchers and analysts increased from 35% to more than 49% between 1985 and 2002; among pharmacists, women increased from 30% in 1985 to 52% in 2002; and the percentage of female economists increased from 35% in 1985 to 55% in 2002.9
• In 2002, women accounted for 29% of all lawyers, more than 31% of all physicians, and 66% of all psychologists.10

The Wage Gap Persists

• In 2002, women earned 76% as much as men. For women of color, the gap was wider. African American women earned 67%, and Latina women 55%, of men's weekly earnings. While Asian Pacific American women do better, they still earn 83.5% as much as men.11
• The gap between the wages of men and women is larger in the U.S. than in Germany, Britain, France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and New Zealand.12
• America's working families lose $200 billion of income annually to the wage gap - an average loss of more than $4,000 each for working women's families every year because of unequal pay.13
• Equal pay is a problem in every occupational category:
  • In 2002, professional women earned almost 26% less than male professionals; 14
  • female technicians earned almost 30% less than their male counterparts;15
  • female administrative support (including clerical) workers earned 17% less than those who were male;16
  • female sales workers earned 41% less than similarly employed men, while women in service occupations earned 24% less than men in service occupations.17
• More specifically, in 2002:
  • Female college and university teachers earned 22% less than those who were male;18
  • female physicians earned a whopping 41% less than those who were male;19
  • female editors and reporters earned more than 14% less than those who were male; 20
  • female lawyers earned 23% less than male lawyers;21 and
  • female computer systems analysts and scientists earned 18% less than similarly employed men.22
• The wage gap exists even in occupations where women considerably outnumber men. In 2002:
  • Female teachers (excluding college and university faculty) earned 13% less than similarly employed men;23
  • female nurses earned 10% less than their male colleagues;24 and
  • female psychologists earned 25% less than male psychologists.25
• For full-time workers aged 25 and older in 2001:
  • The median income of a female high school graduate was more than 26% less than that of her male counterpart;26
  • the median income of a women with a bachelor's degree was over 25% (or $13,243) less than that of a similarly qualified man;27
  • a women with a master's degree earned 28% (or $18,591) less than a man with a master's degree;28
  • the median annual income of a woman with a professional degree was 40% (or $39,907) less than that of her male counterpart;29 and
  • a woman with a doctoral degree earned more than 25% (or $20,652) less than a similarly qualified man.30
• Because women are paid less when they work, they receive smaller pensions (and Social Security checks) when they retire. In 2000, half of all older women received a private pension of less than $4,164 per year, compared with $7,768 for older men.31

Women's Economic Responsibilities

• In 2002, 49% of women were not married; 58% of them were in the labor force.32
• The proportion of families in which the husband, but not the wife, worked outside the home declined from 66% in the 1940s and '50s to only 19% in 2001.33
• The overall labor force participation rate of mothers with children under 18 was 72% in 2001.34
• Whereas in 1970, 12% of all children lived in one parent families, in 2000 almost 27% lived with only one parent. Most of these children lived with their mothers.35
• In 1960, less than 10% of all families were maintained by women; in 2001, the figure was almost 24%.36
• Almost 34% of families where children under 18 lived with their mother (with no father present) were below the poverty level in 2001.37
• By contrast, married couple families had the lowest poverty rate (6%).38

More Degrees

• Women have been earning more bachelor's degrees than men since 1982 and they have been earning more master's degrees than men since 1981. They are expected to earn 55% of all bachelor's degrees conferred in 2003 and 59% of all master's degrees.39
• Women are expected to earn more than 46% of the first professional degrees conferred in 2003, up from 2.6% in 1961.40
• Women are expected to earn 43% of all doctoral degrees in 2003, while in 1961 they earned only 10.5% of all doctoral degrees.41
• The proportion of women in law school increased from 3.7% in 1963 to more than 49% in academic year 2002-03.42
• The proportion of women in medical school increased from 5.8% in academic year 1960-61 to 46.8% in academic year 2001-02.43
• Between academic years 1959-60 and 2000-01, the percentage of degrees in dentistry earned by women increased from 0.8% to 38%.44

Women and Unions

In 2002, 42% of all union members were women. Women are forming and joining unions at a faster rate than men.45

• In 2002, union women earned weekly wages that were 31% more than women who were not union members, while union men earned 16% more than nonunion men.46
• The differences are even more marked for African American and Latina women:
  • The median weekly earnings of African American union women were about 22% more than their nonunion counterparts;47
  • Latina women who were union members had median weekly earnings that were almost 32% higher than their nonunion counterparts.48

For more information on professional women, see DPE's publication, "Salaried and Professional Women: Relevant Statistics" and check out our Website: www.dpeaflcio.org

NOTES:

1&2 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Perspectives on Working Women: A Databook, Bulletin 2080, 1980; U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment and Earnings, Vol. 50, No. 1.

3 Employment and Earnings, op. cit.; Fullerton, H.N., Jr., and Toosi, M., "Labor Force Projections to 2010," U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Monthly Labor Review, Vol. 124, No. 11. November 2001.

4 Hecker, Daniel, "Occupational Employment Projections to 2010," U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Monthly Labor Review, Vol. 124, No. 11, November 2001.

5&6 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, March Supplement, "Marital and Family Characteristics of the Labor Force," 2002.

7 Fullerton, H.N., Jr., and Toosi, M., op. cit.

8-10 Employment and Earnings, op. cit.

11 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, Series P-36, 2003.

12 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; International Labor Organization; Statistics Canada; Employment and Earnings, op. cit.

13 AFL-CIO Institute for Women's Policy Research, Equal Pay for Working Families, 1999.

14-25 Employment and Earnings, op. cit.

26-30 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, 2002.

31 U.S. Social Security Administration, Office of Research, Evaluation and Statistics, Income of the Population Aged 55 or Older, 2000.

32-38 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey.

39-41 U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics: 2001.

42 American Bar Association, Legal Education Division.

43 American Association of Medical Colleges, Databook, 2003 Edition.

44 American Dental Association, 2000-01 Survey of Pre-Doctoral Dental Education, 2003.

45-48 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, BLS News, USDL 03-88

For more information on professional women, see DPE’s publication, "Salaried and Professional Women: Relevant Statistics" and check out our Website: www.dpeaflcio.org

The Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO (DPE) comprises unions representing four million people working in professional, technical and administrative support occupations. DPE-affiliated unions represent: teachers, college professors, librarians and school administrators; nurses, doctors and other health care professionals; engineers, scientists and IT workers; journalists and writers, broadcast technicians and communications specialists; performing and visual artists; professional athletes; psychologists, social workers and many others. DPE was chartered by the AFL-CIO in 1977 in recognition of the rapidly-growing professional and technical occupations.

Source: DPE Research Department
815 16th Street, NW, N.W., #1030
Washington, D.C. 20005

Contact:
Pamela Wilson, (202) 638-6684; pwilson@aflcio.org

4/22/03