More women are managers, but their pay is still lagging

NEW YORK -- Women are more likely than men to work as managers in white-collar professions, a new study says, a significant change since similar research was done 25 years ago.

Thirty-nine percent of women -- compared to 28 percent of men -- held managerial jobs in professions including law and medicine, according to the survey by the New York-based Families and Work Institute.

In similar research done in 1977 by the Labor Department, only 24 percent of women held managerial jobs. The figure has remained relatively steady for men over the same period of time, at about 30 percent.

"The occupational profile of women has changed to reflect the fact that their education level is higher than that of men," said Ellen Galinsky, president of the not-for-profit institute.

Currently, 31 percent of working women have four-year college degrees compared to 27 percent of the men interviewed for the survey. The educational level of men and women did not differ 25 years ago, and since then, women's education has increased more rapidly than men's even though the education level has increased for both over the years.

While the average hourly earnings of all women are not significantly lower than men's -- $19.16 versus $22.29 -- their annual earnings are substantially lower than men's: $36,716 versus $52,908.

"The difference springs from the fact that women are more likely to have more part-time positions than men," Galinsky said. "They are generally compensated less because they spend less time traveling and their need for more flextime means that their jobs are valued less. The flexibility has a cost."

The survey also found that, among dual-earner couples, men are taking more responsibility for cooking and child-care. Men are spending up to two hours doing household chores on any given workday, nearly double the time they spent 25 years ago. Women, on the other hand, are spending three hours on chores, down from nearly four hours in 1977.

The result of this is that the combined time spent on household chores has remained unchanged from 25 years ago -- about five hours on average in both years.

The increased home-related responsibilities mean that men with families say they felt more blurring of the lines between their lives at home and at work. Overall, 45 percent of both men and women -- compared with 34 percent in 1977 -- said they experience significantly more overlap in time previously devoted solely to work or to family.

For example, 62 percent of employees in managerial occupations are likely to use a computer at home for job-related activities like reading reports and sending e-mail.

Conversely, 70 percent of salaried employees sometimes used a cell- phone, beeper or pager to stay in touch with family members and friends, while working.

"These technologies make people more vulnerable to interruptions from work," Galinsky said.

The Institute interviewed 3,504 employed adults nationwide between October 2002 and June 2003 for its survey. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.

Copyright C 2003 Deseret News Publishing Co.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.