The financial activities sector is last in paying women as much as men, according to a new breakdown of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau released a chart on Wednesday that displays women's median weekly earnings as a percentage's of men's across multiple industries in 2009.
According to the data, women in financial activities earn only 71% of what men earned: women made $732 a week, compared to $1,039 a week for men.
The chart is skewed, however, because it doesn't compare individual occupations among the industries. For instance, it doesn't account for the fact that about 70% of trading jobs are filled by men and that trading is a particularly high-paying occupation.
To provide a better sense of how like occupations within the finance industry compare, the BLS provided FINS with the breakdown of women's-to-men's-earnings ratios in finance by specific occupation from 2000 to 2010.
For financial managers, which includes bank directors and managers, women earned 66% of what men did in 2010, or $1,022 per week for every $1,546 per week that men took in. That number holds steady from 2009 and is an increase from 2003, when the ratio was 62.6%, or $823 weekly compared to $1,314.
Accountants and auditors were the most equitable group, with the earnings ratio hovering between 72% and 75% over the past ten years. Financial advisors, on the other hand, had an earnings ratio that oscillated in the 60% range in the first half of the decade. In 2010, the ratio dropped to 58.4%, compared to 75% from the year before and 68% in 2008.
Securities, commodities and financial services sales agents leaned toward the unequal side of the spectrum as well. In 2010 the ratio was 62.7%, up from the mid-50% range the group experienced in the first half of the decade. One exception was the year 2007, when the ratio was 82.9%.
Among other industries, the ratio was highest in construction, with women earning 92% of what men made.
Write to Julie Steinberg