Women Professionals: Making Gains Despite Persistent Inequality in the U.S. Workforce
2025 Fact Sheet
Highlights
More women than men are now earning advanced degrees and working in professional occupations, many which were once largely held exclusively by men. While some women are breaking the glass ceiling, many obstacles to attaining gender equality in the workplace still remain, especially in terms of pay.
In 2024, women made up 66 percent of union members in professional and related occupations. Nonunion women, including women professionals, are more likely than men to support unionization.
Smart public policy is needed to remedy the gender wage gap and address other gender inequality issues for working women. Guaranteed paid sick leave and paid family leave, more affordable and accessible childcare, and strengthened equal pay laws would go a long way to close the gender wage gap and build a stronger economy where American families feel supported.
Part I: Identifying Barriers
Women Professionals at Work
In 2024, women made up the majority, 52.3 percent, of workers in management, professional, and related occupations.[1] However, only 33 percent of chief executives are women,[2] and women only hold 9 percent of CEO positions at S&P 500 companies.[3]
Most mothers, even those with young children, participate in the labor force. In 2024, 68 percent of mothers with children under the age of six were in the workforce, and most of them worked full-time.[4] Among all mothers with children under 18, 74 percent were in the labor force, whereas among fathers with children under 18, 93.5 percent were in the labor force.[5]
Although women constitute the majority of professional employees and have gained greater representation over the past few decades in certain fields, including in legal occupations and in some scientific fields, their distribution in professional occupations skews toward administrative, education, and healthcare or caretaking roles. Meanwhile, women are still struggling to establish a foothold in male-dominated fields like engineering and computer science.
In 2024, women filled only 26.4 percent of computer and mathematical occupations, and 17.2 percent of architecture and engineering occupations.[6]
In comparison, women held 75.8 percent of healthcare practitioner and technical occupations and 73.4 percent of education, training, and library occupations in 2024.[7]
Educational Degrees of Women Professionals
Women have made significant strides in closing the education gap but remain underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Women have been earning more bachelor’s degrees than men since 1982 and they have been earning more master’s degrees than men since 1987.[8] Women received 57.9 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 61.9 percent of master’s degrees in the 2021–2022 academic year.[9]
The percentage of women enrolled in their first year of law school increased from 4.2 percent in 1963–64 to 56.1 percent in 2024.[10]
In 2024-2025, women made up 54.9 percent of all students enrolled in medical school.[11]
Even though women make up a majority of degree-holders from postsecondary institutions, high concentrations of either women or men in certain majors (and certain occupations) underscores the persistence of long-held assumptions about whether women or men are more likely to choose a particular major or career path.[12]
Women in STEM
Studies have shown that bias exists against women in STEM fields. Women have been disfavored in hiring decisions for lab positions, selection for mathematical tasks, evaluation of research abstracts for conferences, research citations, invitations to speak at symposia, postdoctoral employment and tenure decisions.[15]
A study found that there is “pervasive” discrimination towards female undergraduates in the science fields, finding that science professors in U.S. universities widely regard female undergraduates as less competent than their male counterparts with the same accomplishments and skills. The study also found that professors were less likely to offer women mentoring or employment, and if they were offered a job, the salary was lower.[16]
Another study found that male STEM professors are less likely to believe the body of evidence showing that systemic biases against women in STEM exist.[17]
While STEM jobs generally pay more than many other jobs, women in STEM are typically paid less than men in STEM.
Gender pay gaps exist among workers of varying races and ethnicities. Men in STEM who identify as Asian are typically among the highest earners, and women in STEM who identify as Black or Hispanic or Latina are typically among the lowest earners. These gaps are characteristic of inequalities found in other occupations too.[18]
The Gender Wage Gap Persists
The gender wage gap continues to plague the American workforce. In 2024, women in management, professional, and related occupations earned about $0.74 for every dollar earned by men. This represents a three-cent increase from twenty years prior, when women professionals earned about $0.71 for every dollar earned by men. The gap has persisted over the years, despite the fact that women have been earning the majority of college degrees.[19] Research has shown that work done by women is devalued much more often than work done by men.
A study analyzing Census data from 1950 through 2000 found that when the number of women in an occupation increases, the pay for those jobs decreases, even when controlling for education, work experience, skills, race and geography.[20]
The findings suggest that as more women go into historically male-dominated professions, the pay will drop.
For example, over the course of the twentieth century, as more women became professional designers, wages fell 34 percentage points, and as more women became biologists, wages fell 18 percentage points.[21]
The study also confirmed that the reverse was true – when an occupation “professionalized” and attracted more men, wages went up.
The masculinization of the computer programming field provides an example of this phenomenon. In the first half of the twentieth century, computer programmers (known as “computers”) were primarily women. While this work often involved knowledge of advanced computations, it was considered almost clerical in nature, and women were recruited for this work. Presently, men make up the vast majority of computer programmers (82.2 percent in 2024).[22] Their pay is much better than it was when computer programming was considered “women’s work.”[23]
Equal pay remains a problem in every occupational category. The average college educated woman loses almost $800,000 in wages over her lifetime.[24]
While women comprised 57 percent of workers in professional and related occupations in 2024, they earned 28 percent less than their male counterparts.[25]
In 2024, female elementary and middle school teachers earned 11.4 percent less than their male counterparts despite comprising 77 percent of the field.[26]
In 2024, female paralegals and legal assistants earned 18 percent less than their male counterparts despite comprising 81.3 percent of the field, and female lawyers earned 20 percent less than male lawyers.[27]
Women also earn less at every level of education. For full-time workers age 25 and older in 2023, women with a bachelor’s degree or higher earned $0.77 for every dollar earned by men with a comparable education.[28]
Additional Barriers for Working Women
Working women face other barriers that are not strictly related to pay. These obstacles can contribute to inequality in the workplace and can pose economic and health disadvantages to women.
Childcare Expenses
In the United States, childcare can be prohibitively expensive. In fact, it has become so expensive that it can push some families into poverty.[29] While the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has determined that the affordability benchmark for childcare is 7 percent of the family’s income, the Center for American Progress found that in 2023, “it would take 10 percent of median household income for two-parent households with children to afford the average national price of child care.”[30] That figure jumps to 32 percent for single-parent households.[31]
The high cost of childcare tends to force women out of the workforce. If a child needs to stay home from school or day care due to illness or other unforeseen circumstances, a parent might have to miss work to stay home and care for their child. Additionally, federal data has shown that “married mothers spend more time caring for children than married fathers, regardless of employment status.”[32] Women who leave the workforce to take care of children miss out on not only the salary they would have earned if they continued working but also wage growth – not to mention lost retirement assets and benefits. Working mothers were hit particularly hard during the COVID-19 pandemic, when parents had to juggle (unpaid) childcare responsibilities in addition to their regular job, all while navigating changing health and safety guidelines.[33]
In 2023, the average annual cost of full-time tuition and care for one infant at a childcare center was $14,019. The average annual cost for one four-year-old at a childcare center was $10,962.[34]
A 2023 study found that the U.S. childcare crisis costs the nation about $122 billion in lost earnings, productivity, and revenue annually.[35]
Inadequate Family Leave, Sick Leave, and Paid Time Off
Inadequate paid leave in the United States particularly hurts women, especially lack of paid leave after the birth of a child.
The United States is the only OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) country to not require paid leave for new parents. All other OECD countries require around two months of paid leave.[36]
A pivotal 2012 study found that women who used paid family leave were far more likely than those who did not to be working nine months to a year after their child was born, and women who took leave for 30 days or more were 54 percent more likely than women who did not take any leave to report wage increases in the year following their child’s birth.[37]
In 2024, about 34.4 million private-sector employees did not have paid sick time.[38]
Part II: Crafting Solutions
Women and the Union Advantage
On average, union members have higher pay and better benefits than non-union members. The wage gap between union men and women is narrower than the wage gap among non-union men and women. Joining or forming a union is a step women can take to increase wage equality.
In 2024, women union members made 87 percent of what men in unions made, while non-union women made 82 percent of what non-union male workers made.[39]
In 2024, union women earned weekly wages that were 21 percent more than non-union women.[40]
The median weekly earnings of union women who identified as Hispanic or Latina were 21 percent higher than their non-union counterparts.[43]
The union difference is apparent in the median hourly wages of predominantly female occupations. In 2024, for example, union preschool and kindergarten teachers earned 79 percent more than their nonunion counterparts. That year, union registered nurses earned 20 percent more than nonunion nurses.[44]
Union women and men are more likely than non-union workers to have health and pension benefits, and to receive paid holidays and vacations, and life and disability insurance.
In 2024, 9.5 percent of working women were union members.[45]
In 2024, among professional and related occupations, 10.3 percent were union members. Women made up 66 percent of union members in professional and related occupations.[46]
Surveys have found that women, including women professionals, are more likely to support unionization than men. Additionally, in union organizing elections, majority-female occupations have consistently shown much higher win rates than organizing drives in industries with fewer women members.[47]
Public Policy
Smart public policy is needed to remedy the gender wage gap and address other gender inequality issues for working women.
Guarantee Paid Sick Leave
Paid sick days can prevent workers from putting their families’ health and financial security at risk when someone in the family is sick. Paid sick leave can also reduce the spread of contagious illnesses by enabling working people to stay home when they don’t feel well. It can also decrease health care costs by reducing the likelihood of emergency room visits.[48]
The vast majority of voters support paid sick days for workers.[49]
Mandate Paid Family Leave
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) is a federal law that provides employees with job protection if they need to take time off for qualified family or medical reasons; however, the law does not guarantee that the time off is paid.
Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have passed laws creating paid family and medical leave programs.[50]
About 73 percent of private sector employees do not have access to paid family leave.[51]
Working women are hit hardest by the lack of paid family leave because they continue to take on the majority of unpaid family care work.[52]
Make Child Care Affordable
While subsidies exist through federal and state funding streams to assist low-income families with the cost of child care, the funds are insufficient to adequately address the child care needs of low- and middle-income families.
More federal subsidies and increased access to subsidies would mean that more parents, especially mothers, would be able to participate in the workforce, more children would gain access to high-quality education, and more employers would be able to maintain their workforce, leading to a healthier economy.[53]
Strengthen Equal Pay Laws
The Equal Pay Act, signed in 1963, requires men and women to be paid equally for equal work. However, over time, the Equal Pay Act’s protections have been weakened; namely, the courts’ broad interpretation of employers’ defenses outlined in law has made it easier for employers to claim that employees received different pay for a reason other than sex, allowing them to avoid liability for sex discrimination. Also, the Equal Pay Act does not specifically address pay transparency or pay secrecy.[54]
The Paycheck Fairness Act, which has been introduced multiple times in Congress, would strengthen the Equal Pay Act.[55]
Conclusion
Although women make up more than half of the professional labor force, they still do not receive the same treatment and opportunities as men. The persistence of a gender wage gap impacts almost every aspect of women’s lives in the United States. The work of labor unions, fighting for better wages and benefits, makes a huge difference for working women and should be part of the solution to close the wage gap and achieve equality in the workplace. Additionally, public policies that empower women to work and pursue careers that interest them and pay them fairly are an important part of a comprehensive solution to gender inequality in the U.S. workforce.
For more information on professional and technical workers, see DPE’s website: www.dpeaflcio.org.
[1] U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Table 11. Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. 2024.” (January 29, 2025). Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Hinchliffe, Emma and Joey Abrams. “S&P 500 boards have hit a tipping point that may lead to more female CEOs.” (March 25, 2024). Fortune. Retrieved from https://fortune.com/2024/03/25/female-women-ceos-diverse-boards-sp-500/.
[4] U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Table 5. Employment status of the population by sex, marital status, and presence and age of own children under 18, 2023-2024 annual averages.” (April 23, 2025). Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.t05.htm.
[5] Ibid.
[6] U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Table 11.” [above, n. 1].
[7] Ibid.
[8] U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, Table 310, “Degrees conferred by degree-granting institutions, by level of degree and sex of student: Selected years, 1869-70 through 2021-22.” Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_310.asp.
[9] Ibid.
[10] American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. “Enrollment and Degrees Awarded, 1963-2012 Academic Years.” Retrieved from
www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/statistics/enrollment_degrees_awarded.pdf; and American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. “2024 Standard 509 Information Report Data Overview.”(December 16, 2024). Retrieved from https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/statistics/2024/2024-standard-509-information-report-data-overview.pdf.
[11] “New AAMC Data on Medical School Applicants and Enrollment in 2024.” (January 9, 2025). Association of American Medical Colleges. Retrieved from https://www.aamc.org/news/press-releases/new-aamc-data-medical-school-applicants-and-enrollment-2024.
[12] Kochhar, Rakesh. “The Enduring Grip of the Gender Pay Gap.” (March 1, 2023). Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/03/01/the-enduring-grip-of-the-gender-pay-gap/.
[13] U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics. “Table 325.40. Degrees in education conferred by postsecondary institutions, by level of degree and sex of student: Selected academic years, 1949-50 through 2021-22.” Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/current_tables.asp.
[14] U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics. “Table 325.45. Degrees in engineering and engineering technologies conferred by postsecondary institutions, by level of degree and sex of student: Selected academic years, 1949-50 through 2020-21.” Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/current_tables.asp.
[15] Handley, Ian M., Elizabeth R. Brown, Corinne A. Moss-Racusin, and Jessi L. Smith. “Quality of evidence revealing subtle gender biases in science is in the eye of the beholder.” (October 27, 2015). The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 112, 43, pp. 13201–13206. Retrieved from https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1510649112.
[16] Chang, Kenneth. “Bias Persists for Women of Science, a Study Finds.” (September 24, 2012). The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/science/bias-persists-against-women-of-science-a-study-says.html.
[17] Cook, Lindsey. "More Depressing News for Women in STEM." U.S. News and World Report, January 6, 2016. http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/articles/2016-01-06/researchers-show-male-stem-faculty-less-likely-to-support-research-showing-gender-bias.
[18] Fry, Richard, Brian Kennedy and Cary Funk. “STEM Jobs See Uneven Progress in Increasing Gender, Racial and Ethnic Diversity.” (April 1, 2021). Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/04/01/stem-jobs-see-uneven-progress-in-increasing-gender-racial-and-ethnic-diversity/.
[19] U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics. Table 310. [above, n. 8].
[20] Miller, Claire Cain. “As Women Take Over a Male-Dominated Field, the Pay Drops.” (March 18, 2016). The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html.
[21] Ibid.
[22] U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Table 11.” [above, n. 1].
[23] See, e.g., Janet Abbate, Recoding Gender: Women’s Changing Participation in Computing (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press), 2012; and Nathan Ensmenger, The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Professional Expertise (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press), 2010.
[24] Gould, Elise, Jessica Schieder, and Kathleen Geier. “What is the gender pay gap and is it real?: The complete guide to how women are paid less than men and why it can’t be explained away.” (October 20, 2016). Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved from http://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-and-is-it-real/.
[25] U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Table 11,” [above, n. 1]; and U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Table 39: Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by detailed occupation and sex, 2024.” (January 29, 2025). Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat39.htm.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Table 14: Women's earnings as a percentage of men’s, by educational attainment, for full-time wage and salary workers 25 years and older, 1979–2023.” In “Highlights of women’s earnings in 2023.” (August 2024). Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/womens-earnings/2023/home.htm.
[29] Ross, Kyle and Kennedy Andara. “Child Care Expenses Push an Estimated 134,000 Families Into Poverty Each Year.” (October 31, 2024). Center for American Progress. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/article/child-care-expenses-push-an-estimated-134000-families-into-poverty-each-year/.
[30] Schneider, Allie. “A 2024 Review of Child Care and Early Learning in the United States.” (January 30, 2025). Center for American Progress. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/article/a-2024-review-of-child-care-and-early-learning-in-the-united-states/.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Johnson, Richard W., Karen E. Smith, and Barbara Butrica. “Unpaid Family Care Continues to Suppress Women’s Earnings.” (June 9, 2023). Urban Institute. Retrieved from https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/unpaid-family-care-continues-suppress-womens-earnings.
[33] See, e.g., Schneider, “A 2024 Review of Child Care and Early Learning in the United States,” [above, n. 30]; and Katherine Gallagher Robbins and Jessica Mason, “Women’s unpaid caregiving is worth more than $625 billion – and it could cost more,” (August 14, 2023), National Partnership for Women and Families. Retrieved from https://nationalpartnership.org/womens-unpaid-caregiving-worth-more-than-625-billion/.
[34] “Data on Child Care and Early Learning in the United States.” (2024). Center for American Progress. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/data-view/early-learning-in-the-united-states/.
[35] Bishop, Sandra. “$122 Billion: The Growing, Annual Cost of the Infant-Toddler Child Care Crisis.” (February 2023). ReadyNation. Retrieved from https://www.strongnation.org/articles/2038-122-billion-the-growing-annual-cost-of-the-infant-toddler-child-care-crisis.
[36] Livingston, Gretchen and Deja Thomas. “Among 41 nations, U.S. is the outlier when it comes to paid parental leave.” Pew Research Center. (December 16, 2019). Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/26/u-s-lacks-mandated-paid-parental-leave/.
[37] Houser, Linda and Thomas P. Vartanian. “Pay Matters: The Positive Economic Impacts of Paid Family Leave for Families, Businesses and the Public.” (January 2012). Center for Women and Work, Rutgers University. Retrieved from https://nationalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/pay-matters.pdf.
[38] U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Table 6. Selected paid leave benefits: Access, March 2024.” (September 19, 2024). Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs2.t06.htm.
[39] U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Table 41. Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by union affiliation and selected characteristics.” (January 29, 2025). Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat41.htm.
[40] Ibid.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Ibid.
[44] U.S. Census Bureau. Current Population Survey Microdata. 2024. Retrieved from https://data.census.gov/mdat.
[45] U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Table 40. Union affiliation of employed wage and salary workers by selected characteristics.” (January 29, 2025). Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat40.htm.
[46] U.S. Census Bureau. Current Population Survey Microdata. 2024. [above, n. 43].
[47] Bronfenbrenner, Kate and Robert Hickey, “Changing to Organize: A National Assessment of Union Organizing Strategies,” in Ruth Milkman and Kim Voss, eds., Organize or Die: Labor’s Prospects in Neoliberal America, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004); Kate Bronfenbrenner, “Organizing Women: The Nature and Process of Union Organizing Efforts among U.S. Women Workers since around the Mid-1990’s,” Work and Occupations, 32, 4, November 2005.
[48] “Fact Sheet: The Healthy Families Act.” (November 2023). National Partnership for Women and Families. Retrieved from https://nationalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/the-healthy-families-act-fact-sheet.pdf.
[49] Ibid.
[50] “Chart: State Paid Family & Medical Leave Insurance Laws.” (July 2024). National Partnership for Women and Families. Retrieved from https://nationalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/state-paid-family-leave-laws.pdf.
[51] Williamson, Molly Weston. “The State of Paid Family and Medical Leave in the U.S. in 2024.” (January 17, 2024). Center for American Progress. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-state-of-paid-family-and-medical-leave-in-the-u-s-in-2024/.
[52] “Fact Sheet: Legislative Proposals for Updating the Family and Medical Leave Act.” (February 2020). National Partnership for Women and Families. Retrieved from https://nationalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/updating-the-fmla.pdf.
[53] Giannarelli, Linda, Gina Adams, Sarah Minton, and Kelly Dwyer. “What If We Expanded Child Care Subsidies?” (June 2019). Urban Institute. Retrieved from https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/100284/what_if_we_expanded_child_care_subsidies_5.pdf.
[54] Holmes, Kaitlin, Jocelyn Frye, Sarah Jane Glynn, and Jessica Quinter. “Rhetoric vs. Reality: Equal Pay.” Center for American Progress. (November 7, 2016). Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2016/11/07/292175/rhetoric-vs-reality-equal-pay/.
[55] “Fact Sheet: The Paycheck Fairness Act.” (March 2023). National Partnership for Women and Families. Retrieved from https://nationalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/the-paycheck-fairness-act.pdf.