7 Jobs That Are Becoming More Widely Held by Women

There was a time when women were mostly employed in just a handful of occupations. These days, some jobs are becoming more widely held by women who are spreading their talents and expertise much further and wider than ever before.

Despite the persistent gender wage gap – the role of women on the professional landscape has been expanding for quite some time. Women earned more bachelor’s degrees than men for the first time in 1982 and they have increased their share of degrees every year since. Now, they earn the majority of master’s degrees and doctoral degrees too. With all this education, it’s not surprising that many industries and job categories are increasingly dominated by women.

Recently, 24/7 Wall Street released a list of jobs that have become dominated by women based on 2000 and 2016 census data for over 300 occupations. Women make up the majority of the workforce for each of these job categories, and their share is increasing. Let’s take a closer look at a few of the jobs from this list:

1. Parking enforcement worker – median hourly rate, $13.13

The job of parking enforcement worker wasn’t always dominated by women. In fact, in the year 2000 only 44 percent of these professionals were women. Now, that figure has climbed to 50.8 percent. Many of the jobs on this list are relatively high paying. This one is a bit of an exception to that rule.

2. Social and community service managers – median annual salary, $49,046

Women have dominated the job of social or community service manager for quite some time. They made up 62.7 percent of that workforce in 2000. By 2016, they dominated with 69.3 percent of the total.

3. Public relations specialist – median annual salary, $46,619

Women made up 65.3 percent of the public relation specialist field in 2016. That’s up 6.4 percentage points from 2000. Still, 24/7 Wall Street reports that women typical earn just about 80 percent of the median salary of their male counterparts in the profession, which is just around the average for all occupations.

4. Technical writer – median annual salary, $58,029

The percentage of women who work as technical writers has risen alongside women college and higher degree attainment. This job isn’t as dominated by women as others, but women’s share of this workforce is definitely increasing. Women dominate these jobs at 58.2 percent. That’s up from 51.4 percent in 2000.

5. Bakers – median hourly rate, $11.68

Although cooking and baking at home has long been associated with women, working as a professional chef or baker has been an historically male path. Nowadays though women dominate the profession of baker, occupying 54 percent of the industry. Although the gender pay gap is practically nonexistent for these professionals, bakers make less than any other profession on the list.

6. Writers and authors – median annual salary, $48,555

Men have dominated the literary world for centuries, but that’s starting to change. There are now more women writers and authors than men. They accounted for 46.4 percent of the profession in 2000. In 2016, they dominated the field at 56.6 percent.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Men have dominated the literary world for centuries, but that’s starting to change. There are now more women writers and authors than men. In 2016, they dominated the field at 56.6 percent.” quote=”Men have dominated the literary world for centuries, but that’s starting to change. There are now more women writers and authors than men. In 2016, they dominated the field at 56.6 percent.”]

7. Compliance officer – median annual salary, $65,972

The number of women who have the job of compliance officer has risen considerably since 2000, when only 45.1 percent of these professionals were female. Now, women make up 52.6 percent of folks in this occupation. Still, according to 24/7 Wall Street’s data, they only earn 88 percent of the median income of their male counterparts. On average, women earn about 80 percent of what men make, across occupations. In 2000, that average was just 73 percent.

The wage data for this piece is from PayScale’s Career Research Center.

Tell Us What You Think

Have you ever worked one of the jobs on this list? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment or join the discussion on Twitter.