Where Oregon Women Work

Women outnumber men in 40 percent of Oregon's industries. Two-thirds of jobs in the educational services sector are held by women. Women outnumber men by more than three to one in Oregon's health care and social assistance industry. Retail trade and accommodation and food services also employ greater numbers of women than men, along with finance and insurance; professional, scientific, and technical services; other services; and management of companies and enterprises.

Conversely, the industry with the highest ratio of men to women in Oregon is the mining, quarrying, oil, and gas extraction industry where only 15 percent of industry employment is female. Men dominate employment in the manufacturing sector, making up nearly three-fourths of the sector's workforce. In the construction industry, just two out of 10 Oregon workers are female.

The types of occupations that Oregon women are employed in span the spectrum. However, female workers are more concentrated in some jobs than others. Women hold nearly three out of five of Oregon's service jobs, and nearly two-thirds of sales and office jobs.

Average wages for Oregon women are lower than men in every industry. Utilities had the highest average wage for women at $4,822 per month, followed by wholesale trade ($3,998), finance and insurance ($3,827), information ($3,820), and management of companies and enterprises ($3,793).

The earnings gap between men and women is smallest in the accommodation and food services sector where women's average monthly earnings are 83 percent of their male counterparts and industry average earnings are the lowest statewide. In contrast, the finance and insurance industry has the largest gap between average earnings of women and men, with women making 54 percent of average earnings of men in the industry.

Interested in more information about employment by gender? Check out the full article, written by Workforce Analyst Shawna Sykes.