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Men have historically made more than women in the workplace—sometimes by quite a lot. Having recently visualized nationwide crime trends over time as a map, the Movoto Real Estate Blog decided to look into how the earnings of men and women have progressed over a 10-year span.
We consulted the U.S. Census’ American Community Survey, crunched some numbers, and created the all-too-telling graphic you can see above, as well as the others you’ll see throughout this article.
Curious how we determined these results? You can scroll to the end of this article and read about our methodology. In the meantime, we’ll take a look at some visible trends and patterns and discuss what these maps are really saying.
First, The Good News
Let’s start by saying that there was no year or state where women made equal earnings (or more earnings) compared to men during the range of our survey.
However, there is a little bit of good news: Looking at the national average for the difference between men’s and women’s earnings, the gap has been slowly closing.
In 2004, the difference according to the American Community Survey was nearly 25 percent, with women making a quarter less than men. Since then, the difference has decreased by about half a percent every few years, and in 2013 women’s wages were about 21.9 percent less than men’s overall.
That’s still quite a gap and not exactly something to celebrate, but the trend is towards earning equality, and that, at least, is a good sign. Unfortunately, this trend did not extend to every state in the country.
Where The Gap Is Growing
It might seem absurd to think that the gap between earnings of men and women could still be growing in some places in this day and age, but, as it turns out, that’s still occurring in a few states.
In Louisiana, the difference has consistently been wide, with women making at least 30 percent less every single year of our survey. What’s more is that in 2004 women there were making just over 32 percent less, but in 2013 that difference had grown to over 34 percent.
In Wyoming, women made nearly 30 percent less than men in 2004. As extreme as that number is, in 2012 women made almost 36 percent less than men. That difference decreased slightly the next year, but it was still worse than it had been only 10 years earlier.
West Virginia and South Dakota also had a consistently large gap between the earnings of men and women.
States On Their Way
While many states wavered between a shrinking and growing earnings gap, some states are definitely headed in the right direction. For example, women in Georgia made 23 percent less than men in 2004, but in 2013 that gap had closed to just around 18 percent.
Georgia wasn’t the only example. Florida and Delaware also saw a significant decrease in the earnings gap, with Delaware most notably closing a 24 percent difference to a 17.6 percent difference in just 10 years. Wisconsin, Michigan, and New Hampshire all saw similar decreases.
Possibly the most significant change was seen in New York, where women made well over 20 percent less than men in 2004. That gap progressively shrank each year of our survey, so that, in 2013, the difference was only around 14 percent.
The Ups And Downs
We should also note that there were a few states that stayed unchanged or wavered a lot over the time period we looked at. California, for example, had a consistently small gap in earnings, whereas Idaho was consistently high.
Alaska, on the other hand, fluctuated betweena large and small difference, as did Arkansas and Montana. In fact Montana went from large gap to small gap every few years, jumping between over 30 percent and under 25 percent, often in only a one-year span.
It just goes to show that not every earnings trend here is consistent.
The Difference Is Notable
Even with the gap between the earnings of men and women shrinking steadily in many states—and nationally—the difference is still undeniable. Whatever the reason for this wage discrepancy, it’s one that’s worth examining and taking note of, no matter your gender or where you call home.
How We Created These Maps
To create this map, we first looked to the U.S. Census’ American Community Survey for data. In particular, we looked at the earnings for men and women each year from 2004 to 2013. Then, we found the percentage difference between men and women’s earnings each year. We also found the national average difference in earnings between the genders each year, just for comparison’s sake.
Lastly, we color coded our data so that states with a smaller earnings discrepancy were a lighter shade of red while places with a larger gap were darker.
In order to be more fair, we only looked at the earnings of full-time, year-round employees ages 16 and older, so part-time and contract workers weren’t factored into our analysis, nor were homemakers.
