Women Earn More Than Men in a Few Fields
Posted on March 15, 2006
A CNNMoney.com article by Jeanne Sahadi includes a list of 39 jobs where women earn more than men. Sales engineers topped the list with the women outearning men by over 40% -- $89,908 to $62,660. Some other jobs where women outearned men by 25% or more include statisticians, legislators, automotive service technicians and mechanics, speech-language pathologists and motion picture projectionists. The list was compiled by Warren Farrell, the author of Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap - and What Women Can Do About It. Farrell also gave Sahadi a couple reasons why these particular fields might pay women more than men.
One factor may be scarcity. In fields like engineering, a company may get one woman and seven men applying for a job, Farrell said. If the company wants to hire the woman, they may have to pay a premium to get her.Obviously, the list of fields where men outearned men would be enormous but it is good to see a few fields where women earn more.That's because she may have more competing offers than her male counterparts. The reason: not only is she a top performer who can boost a company's profitability but employing her helps a company improve its equal-opportunity standing, which in turn can help it secure government contracts.
Also, where women can combine technical expertise with people skills - such as those required in sales and other arenas where customers may prefer dealing with a woman - that's likely to contribute to a premium in pay.
"She gives people the best of both worlds," Farrell said.