Back to The Gender Wage Gap in Kentucky, 1968-1999From The Future Well-Being of Women in Kentucky
pp. 35-46, published 1999
Women have a huge stake in the job market as their earnings become more and more central to the well-being of families and households. Between 1994 and 2005, the presence of women in the labor force is expected to grow at nearly twice the pace as men’s—16.6 percent compared with 8.5 percent. During the same time period, women are expected to increase their share of the national labor force from 46 percent to 48 percent. Given these forces of change, what is the employment outlook for women in the Commonwealth? Which jobs will be in demand from now until 2005, which occupations will provide the most job openings each year, and which are likely to grow the fastest or decline by 2005? In short, how will Kentucky women fare in the coming economy? This chapter offers some answers to these questions. Table 1: 20 Leading Occupations of Employed Women, U.S. Annual Averages, 1997 Table 2: Occupations of Employed Persons, Kentucky, 1990Here we present information about the jobs U.S. and Kentucky women currently hold, the growth or decline we can expect in those jobs, and the educational requirements for those jobs. We also consider some of the ways women must prepare themselves for future employment opportunities. We find that many Kentucky women currently hold jobs that are expected to experience significant growth between now and 2005; however, the average wage of the fastest growing occupations is comparatively low.
In 1995, women age 16 and over in the United States numbered 103 million, of which a record 61 million or 59.2 percent were in the civilian labor force; that is, they were either working or looking for work.(1) The U.S. Department of Labor reports the 20 leading occupations of employed women annually. As Table 1 shows, the category of secretaries heads the list, both in total number of jobs and in percentage of women employed, with 98.5 percent of secretary positions nationwide being held by women.(2) Other traditional jobs where three fourths or more of those employed are women include receptionists (96.5 percent); registered nurses (93.5 percent); bookkeepers, accounting, and auditing clerks (92.3 percent); hairdressers and cosmetologists (90.4 percent); nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants (89.4 percent); elementary school teachers (83.9 percent); cashiers (78.3 percent); and waiters and waitresses (77.8 percent).
To get a good grasp on the employment outlook for Kentucky women, we must first determine where they are employed now. Kentucky-specific data are listed in Table 2, organized in broad job categories. The data show that many Kentucky women are working in jobs traditionally held by women. Secretaries top the list here as well (98.5 percent), but women are also highly represented in other traditional roles: private household service occupations (96.2 percent), financial records processing occupations (90.3 percent), health assessment and treating occupations (86.4 percent), and health technologists and technicians (84.1 percent). In addition, 78.3 percent of those employed as cashiers nationwide in 1997 were women, while women accounted for 84.5 percent of Kentucky cashiers (1990 data).
On the flip side, Kentucky women are poorly represented in traditional "male" occupations. As Table 2 demonstrates, in 1990 Kentucky women made up only 7.4 percent of the police and firefighters, 6.3 percent of engineers, 3.6 percent of construction laborers, 3.4 percent of material moving equipment operators, 3.3 percent of mechanics and repairers, and 2.5 percent of those in construction trades.
According to projections by the Kentucky Workforce Development Cabinet,(3) some jobs will decline in the future (see Table 3), but overall Kentucky jobs are expected to grow about 17 percent compared with 14 percent nationwide. The Kentucky economy is expected to create more than 300,000 new jobs between 1994 and 2005. The Cabinet estimates that an additional 428,000 job vacancies will likely occur through retirements, promotions, or transfers within occupations. Projections for the Kentucky economy are that 66,000 jobs per year through 2005 will have to be filled by newly educated and trained workers. As Table 4 illustrates, annual job openings will abound for those with an education, regardless of gender. These jobs will include managerial positions, registered nurses, and teachers.
Table 3: Projected Job Losses in Occupations with Highest Losses, Kentucky, 1994-2005
Table 4: The Fastest Growing Occupations in Kentucky, by Job Requirement, 1994-2005
However, the employment change for this period will vary greatly among the 620 occupations presented in the report, Kentucky Occupational Outlook to 2005. Nearly 50 percent of the new jobs created will be in two major occupational categories: professional and paraprofessional and technical and services. Within these two major sectors, health care and computer-related occupations will grow rapidly through 2005, as will new jobs in personal service and protective service occupations.
Method and Data. In this section, we explore how we determined the future job market for women, where we collected the data, and the method we used for examining it. As previously noted, employment projections for Kentucky were provided in the Kentucky Workforce Development Cabinet’s report, Kentucky Occupational Outlook to 2005. This document projects employment changes for 620 occupations by Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) codes for the period 1994 to 2005. For example, in 1994 there were 28,966 registered nurses(4) employed in Kentucky. By 2005, 36,238 are projected to be employed in this occupation. That translates into 7,272 new job opportunities for registered nurses or a 25.1 percent increase. According to the Workforce Development Cabinet, 1,093 new jobs are expected per year for registered nurses from job openings expected to result from employment growth and openings generated by workers separating from or leaving the occupation, requiring replacement workers. These separations occur as a result of retirements, promotions, or transfers within occupations.
However, this report does not forecast openings by gender, so we used another data set to estimate occupational changes by gender. Survey data from the University of Kentucky (UK) Survey Research Center provide us with information on where Kentuckians are currently employed as well as additional socioeconomic factors. We used data from the spring 1996, fall 1996, and fall 1997 surveys to estimate where Kentuckians are currently employed.(5) The size of our sample of employed Kentuckians for the combined surveys was 1,176, though information on all questions was not available from every respondent.
Information on respondents garnered from the UK Survey Research Center data included, among other variables, gender and occupation. Based on the survey respondents’ answers to the question, "What is your occupation?" we determined a possible 5-digit OES code for that particular occupation.(6) This allows us to link an individual’s response regarding occupation to projected changes in occupations forecasted by OES code.
Assumptions. We assume that women in Kentucky will tend to work in the same occupations through the year 2005 that they now hold. Though it is, of course, possible for anyone of either gender to pursue and succeed in any job, the reality is that one gender or the other is overrepresented in many jobs. Consequently, future Kentucky women who enter the labor force will be facing the same labor market circumstances that current women in Kentucky now face.
Gender has always exercised a strong effect on occupational options and choices. Francine Blau and Marianne Ferber, University of Illinois colleagues, report that not only "were relatively few women employed during the early years of the twentieth century, but they also tended to work in different occupations than men and were concentrated in a relatively few jobs."(7) They cite census data showing that almost 39 percent of employed women were in domestic service, which "may plausibly be seen as an extension of what women do at home."(8) Additionally, 25 percent were in manufacturing, "virtually all in textiles, clothing, and tobacco. Another 18 percent . . . were in agriculture. Finally, 8 percent were in the professions, almost entirely composed of school teachers and nurses. These professions, again, may be regarded as extensions of women’s domestic role."(9)
Ninety percent of all women in the labor force were in this small group of occupations. Teaching and clerical work were originally primarily male occupations, but after 1900, when clerical positions gradually ceased to be viewed as apprenticeships, women entered this field in significant numbers; in time, it became predominately female and absorbed a substantial proportion of employed women.(10) By 1989, women tended to be concentrated in administrative support (including clerical) and service occupations; 46 percent of all women workers were in these two occupations, compared to only 15.3 percent of men. Men were considerably more likely than women to be in operator and laborer jobs and in the precision production, craft, and repair occupations, the strongholds of skilled blue-collar workers. Forty percent of male workers were employed in these categories in 1989, as compared with 11 percent of women. Men were also somewhat more highly represented than women in executive, managerial, and administrative positions, whereas women were somewhat more highly represented than men in professional jobs.(11)
Blau, now a Cornell University professor of economics, raises the question of whether the tendency for women to find work in traditionally lower paying occupations is due to women’s preferences or to discrimination against women. She cites arguments that support either conclusion. Nonetheless, her research suggests that occupational gender segregation has "greatly diminished," which explains at least a portion of the improvement in women’s wages.(12) Likewise, Joyce P. Jacobsen of Wesleyan University notes that while women have increased their representation in all the white-collar occupational groups (professional, managerial, clerical, and sales), they were concentrated in clerical occupations from 1950 to 1990. However, they have made their biggest representation gains in the managerial occupations.(13)
The job outlook is brighter for Kentucky women than for men. As Figure 1 shows, men and women are equally likely to have jobs that are projected to decline by 2005. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to be in jobs with low growth rates (i.e., between 1 percent and 20 percent), while women are more likely to be in jobs with high growth rates (i.e., more than 20 percent). About 8.5 percent of women and 9.0 percent of men are currently in jobs that are expected to decline or remain stagnant in the future, suggesting more unemployment or movement to other types of occupations where jobs are expected to increase. Men held almost a two-to-one margin (12.6 percent compared to 7.4 percent) in jobs expecting little growth (1 percent to 10 percent) as well, and slightly more men than women (38.7 percent compared to 35.7 percent) were in the category of jobs expecting medium growth (11 percent to 20 percent). But the other categories of jobs expecting high to hyper (over 30 percent) growth had more women than men.
It is also important to examine the estimated net change in the number of jobs since a percentage change is affected by the size of the baseline value. For example, an increase of 101 percent, one of the largest percentage increases between 1994 and 2005 for any job, is expected for occupational therapy assistant (OES Code 66021). Yet this 101 percent increase only represents 166 new jobs.
As we see in Figure 2, when considering the net change in the number of jobs for their current occupations, just as when we considered the percentage change, men and women are equally likely to have jobs that are projected to decline by 2005. However, men are more likely to be in jobs with low (1-250 new jobs), medium (251-1,000 new jobs), and high growth (1,001-2,500 new jobs) while women, on the other hand, are more likely to be in jobs expecting hyper growth (over 2,500 new jobs.)
Age Differences. In this section we examine whether younger workers (ages 18-44) tend to be in jobs that are more likely to increase than older workers (ages 45-65) when considering their future employment opportunities. Are older women, for example, concentrated in jobs that are likely to decrease or in jobs expected to increase in number? Does the picture we see for Kentuckians as a group differ from the perspective we find when considering the separate age distinctions?
We find little difference between the two age groups. We looked specifically at where Kentucky women, profiled by age, are currently working and what percentage change could be expected in those job categories. We find that the percentages are relatively close across all job growth categories when we examine the distribution of employed Kentucky women by age group and the estimated percentage change in the number of jobs for their current occupations from 1994 to 2005 (see Table 5). The widest difference (5.5 percentage points) is in the medium job growth category where 34.5 percent of younger Kentucky women are employed compared with 40 percent of older employed Kentucky women.
Results are almost identical when we examine the distribution of employed Kentucky women by age group and the estimated net change in the number of jobs for their current occupations from 1994 to 2005 (see Table 6). The biggest difference we find between the two groups is in the low growth category, about 6 percentage points.On the surface it would appear that women’s place in the future workforce is secure. A closer look, however, reveals a not-so-rosy picture. What kinds of jobs are those that so many Kentucky women hold? We know they are expected to increase in number, but how well do they pay? We examined the average pay for each of these job categories by gender. As expected, the average wages for occupations currently held by women are lower than wages for the occupations held by men.
The average wages for occupations held by women are lower than for occupations held by men in every category when we compare the estimated percentage change in the number of jobs (see Table 7). This is also true when we compare the estimated net change in the number of jobs (see Table 8), but at least the jobs Kentucky is losing for women are low-paying, in contrast to men’s jobs which are high-paying. Most women are in the medium job growth category and the pay is relatively high ($12.95 per hour). Earlier we noted that there are a lot more women in the hyper growth category, but the mean wage, $10.19 per hour, while not bad, is almost the lowest in the table (see Table 7). Table 8: Occupational Mean Wage (1996), by Gender and by the Estimated Net Change in Number of Jobs, 1994-2005 Education. The marketplace will determine the types of jobs in the future workplace, but education will continue to be most critical to success. The requirements in many of the less-skilled jobs in the marketplace will remain unchanged. Their skill requirements are low and will remain so; however, the education and job requirements in many of the higher skilled jobs will increase and change significantly. The better educated and trained individuals become to meet these changes, the more job opportunities, as well as higher pay, will become available to them.Education pays dividends throughout life. Traditionally, the more education, the more money earned. In fact, the value of education has clearly increased during the past 20 years. The wages of high school graduates declined in the 1970s and 1980s while the earnings of college graduates have increased, thus increasing incentives to attend college.(14) Though not every person who holds an advanced degree reports a high income and many people who left school early have high earnings today, there is a clear relationship between the amount of schooling a worker has and subsequent earnings (see Figure 3).(15)
Figure 3: Mean Annual Earnings of Full-Time Adult Workers, by Highest Level of Education, 1994
We also examined occupations by levels of education and training generally required to gain employment in the field. The four broad educational requirements used to organize the occupations are as follows: bachelor’s degree or higher; extensive postsecondary (less than a bachelor’s degree) or employer training; high school diploma or some postsecondary training; and high school diploma preferred but often not required. Employment will grow in occupations requiring all levels of education and training. Kentucky’s job growth through 2005 when allocated among the four education levels will range from 22 to 31 percent (see Figure 4).(16)
We examined the education requirements for jobs where Kentucky women are already in the workforce (see Table 9). Over half (51.4 percent) are concentrated in the "lower" end of the requirement scale, compared with only 28 percent of the men, where at best some postsecondary education is required. However, almost one third (32.8 percent) are also currently working in jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree.
We also compared the current average hourly wages of occupations held by Kentucky women with those of occupations held by men in jobs requiring similar education backgrounds as well as to jobs requiring different education backgrounds. In other words, we compared occupational wages for both men and women in the four separate job categories by education requirement (see Table 10). Within every job category, "men’s occupations" on average have higher salaries than women’s. Interestingly, there are more women than men in jobs requiring at least a bachelor’s degree (32.8 percent compared to 26.7 percent) but women’s hourly wages are less ($17.82 compared to $20.94). More women than men (51.4 percent compared with 28.1 percent) are currently in jobs requiring at best a high school diploma and some postsecondary employer training. Those hourly wages on average are not very high ($6.83-$8.59 for women and $7.91-$9.89 for men). Even if medium or high growth occurs in these job categories, the women working there will not benefit greatly because the wages are so low.In the job categories where extensive postsecondary or employer training is required, the hourly wage begins to increase, but these are jobs held by less than one fifth of the women (15.8 percent). The final one third of the female workforce is in jobs requiring at least a college degree.
But we also found that women cluster at the low educational end while men concentrate on the high educational end. Over half the women in the workforce are now in jobs requiring at most a high school diploma and some postsecondary training (51.4 percent). On the other hand, 72 percent of the male workforce are in jobs requiring at the least extensive postsecondary or employer training, and in fact, over one fourth are in jobs requiring at least a bachelor’s degree.
Three times as many men as women (15.8 percent compared to 45.3 percent) have jobs requiring extensive postsecondary or employer training but not necessarily a degree. In jobs requiring only a high school diploma and some postsecondary education, 41.3 percent of those employed are women, and only 22.6 percent are men. And in the job category where a high school diploma is not required, there are almost twice as many women (10.1 percent) as men (5.5 percent).
What does this suggest for the future well-being of women in Kentucky? It shows that men and women with a college degree can do well. However, while men without a college education can still do well, women without a college education usually do not. In other words, a woman’s best opportunity for future success in the workforce is to get into a job requiring a college degree. Many men will continue to fare well without a college degree; in fact, 45.3 percent of men are in the extensive postsecondary or employer training category and make a good wage. But women, as a rule, will need at least a college degree to succeed.
Fortunately, women are getting more education. The proportion of women completing college has topped that of men, and the lead is widening.(17) As of 1997, 29.3 percent of women ages 25 to 29 had completed four years or more of college, compared with 26.3 percent of men. The Census Bureau’s analysis of education statistics also found that women topped men 28.2 percent to 26.1 percent in 1996. That was the first time women had a statistically significant lead. Between 1985 and 1995 the percentages of men and women completing college was so close that the difference was considered statistically insignificant. Before 1985, men consistently held the lead, but, as they have traditionally done, young women led men in completing high school—88.9 percent to 85.8 percent.
High job growth is expected for the occupations in which Kentucky women are currently employed, but these are not necessarily high-paying jobs. Women need to prepare themselves for the workplace of the future by getting an adequate education, which is key to higher earnings. Certainly, women cannot afford not to get an education. Indeed, no one can. But undereducated males are likely to fare better in the workforce than undereducated women, probably because men are more likely than women to have jobs in the manufacturing sector and in other male-dominated fields that offer higher pay. As women increase their levels of education and training and enter more "nontraditional" jobs, their employment and earnings outlook will brighten. Accordingly, Blau and Ferber note, "As the labor force participation of women remains high and is likely to continue to increase, young women will be even more likely to invest in their human capital in preparation for market work and to continue moving into less traditional occupations. Both these trends should continue to reduce the male-female earnings gap, perhaps even at a faster pace than in the past."(18) Without some postsecondary training, women will continue to be the major component of the Commonwealth’s "working poor." Though plenty of jobs will be available to them, these jobs will largely pay a minimal wage and offer little chance of advancement. As a consequence, the employment outlook for women in Kentucky hinges upon their educational preparation.
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* The author extends grateful acknowledgement to Earl Turley of the Kentucky Workforce Development Cabinet for his assistance in providing the employment codes and Michael T. Childress, Executive Director of the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center, for his assistance with the data analysis. Return to text.
U.S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, Facts on Working Women, No. 96-2, Sept. 1996. Return to text.
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, February 1997, Washington, DC. Return to text.
Kentucky Workforce Development Cabinet, Kentucky Occupational Outlook to 2005 (Frankfort, KY: Author, 1997). Return to text.
OES Code 32502. Return to text.
For all three samples, households were selected using random-digit dialings, a procedure giving every residential telephone line in Kentucky an equal probability of being called. Calls were made from May 5 until June 5, 1996, for the spring 1996 survey; December 9, 1996, until January 8, 1997, for the fall 1996 survey; and November 19 until December 21, 1997, for the fall 1997 survey. The spring 1996 survey sample includes 629 (676 for the fall 1996 survey and 635 for the fall 1997 survey) noninstitutionalized Kentuckians 18 years of age or older. The margin of error for the spring 1996 survey is slightly less than 4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level (3.9 percentage points for the fall 1996 telephone survey and 4 percentage points for the fall 1997 survey). Return to text.
Because survey respondents answer questions using different terminology, many answers would not correspond with the U.S. Department of Labor’s exact description for each OES code. We therefore included a "certainty" variable to indicate how closely aligned the survey respondent’s reply was to the description of the OES code. A certainty variable of "1" means the answer was exactly the same as the OES description, a "2" variable means it was "almost" the same, and a "3" variable means it was a subjective guess. The frequency distribution of the various variables is 1=634 or 53.9 percent, 2=487 or 41.4 percent, and 3=55 or 4.7 percent. For example, a respondent might say he is a "chef" but there is no specific 5-digit OES code for "chef." There are, however, four separate OES codes for "cook" depending on where the cook does his cooking: "cooks, restaurant;" "cooks, institution or cafeteria;" "cooks, specialty fast food;" and "cooks, short order." There are also "bakers, bread and pastry," "food preparation workers," and "combined food preparation and service workers." In this case, we would assign the chef the 5-digit code for "cooks, restaurant" and a certainty variable of "2." On the other hand, when a respondent replied he was a cook for a public school system, we would assign him the 5-digit OES code for "cooks, institution or cafeteria," with a certainty variable of "1." We analyzed the data, first using all the responses, including those with a certainty variable of "3," and then just the responses with certainty variables "1" and "2." We compared those results to the results gained from comparisons using only the certainty variable of "1" to see if there was any significant difference. Since there was not, we used the entire set of responses to maintain a reasonable sample size for accuracy. Return to text.
Francine D. Blau and Marianne A. Ferber, The Economics of Women, Men, and Work (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986). Return to text.
Blau and Ferber. Return to text.
Blau and Ferber. Return to text.
Blau and Ferber. Return to text.
Blau and Ferber. Return to text.
Francine D. Blau, "Trends in the Well-Being of American Women, 1970-1995," Journal of Economic Literature, 26 (1998): 112-165. Return to text.
Joyce P. Jacobsen, The Economics of Gender (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1994). Return to text.
Dan Black, Kermit Daniel, and Seth Sanders, "The Earnings of Dropouts and High School Enrollments: Evidence from the Coal Boom and Bust," Exploring the Frontier of the Future, eds. Michael T. Childress, Billie M. Sebastian, Peter Schirmer and Michal Smith-Mello (Frankfort, KY: Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center, 1996) 81. Return to text.
KY Workforce Development Cabinet. Return to text.
KY Workforce Development Cabinet. Return to text.
Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press, reported in The Courier-Journal 29 June 1998: A3. Return to text.
Blau and Ferber. Return to text.