Tuesday, August 22, 2006

The Katrina Glass Ceiling

Over at Feministe, zuzu had a very nice article on a study issued by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research on the socioeconomic status of women in post-Katrina New Orleans. It's not pretty.

What jumped out at me from zuzu's piece specifically were these two statistics:

  • The median earnings for men in their lowest-paid occupations range from $15,150 to $23,500 annually, compared with women’s earnings of $11,400 to $20,000 in their lowest-paid occupations.

  • At the high end of the scale, men’s median earnings range from $38,700 to $130,000, compared with a high range of $30,000 to $63,000 for women.


  • So, we can break down these ranges by their respective values. We'll call them Low-Wage Low-Earning/High-Earning Men and Women, and High-Wage Low-Earning/High-Earning Men and Women, respectively, just so we can hang a handle on them. Let's look at the disparity between these four values.

    At the low end, LWLE women make 75.24% of what LWLE men make ($11 400 versus $15 150).

    LWHE women make 85.1% of what LWHE men make, putting them at the least gender-based disadvantage of any group ($20 000 versus $23 500).

    In the high-wage group, HWLE women make 77.5% of what their male counterparts do ($30 000 versus $38 700).

    On the other hand, HWHE women make just 48.46% of what HWHE men make ($63 000 versus $130 000).

    Based on these median figures, that actually means the higher-earning women are actually at more of a comparative income disadvantage by gender. I know the usual income disparity generally is that women earn between 75-80% of what men earn, but I don't have good figures on how that breaks down once you get into the top 1% of income earners or so.

    Nevertheless, New Orleans seems to have a serious glass ceiling problem.

    1 Comments:

    Blogger spocko said...

    Zuzu's petals? Zuzu's petals? I had them right here.

    Actually this gives me an idea for a movie with and with out George Bush!

    National Guard. In place. Enough choppers to plug holes in levees.
    If they still broke, enough NG to evacuate people. Imagine the Clinton FEMA team in charge of the clean up. Put a real go getter in charge of the rebuilding. (Who is in charge anyway?)

    But allas it appear we live are destined to live in Potterville instead of good ol' Bedford Falls.

    "George W. Bush, you are a bad man with an ugly heart."

    Oh, and btw, check out the letter I sent you via gmail. Sorry I've been kind of out of it. Broke a bone in my foot. It's my new excuse for not getting things down/connecting to people.

    10:52 PM  

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