Women's Equality: Alabama Is Among Worst States

MONTGOMERY, AL — Alabama has popped up again at the bottom of a national list. This time, a recent study on women's equality shows Alabama among the nation's worst.

With Women’s Equality Day around the corner and the U.S. ranking No. 51 out of 149 countries on the Global Gender Gap Index – falling two spots since the previous year – the personal finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2019’s Best & Worst States for Women's Equality.

Alabama was listed in the study as the 7th worst state for women's equality.

In order to determine where women receive the most equal treatment in American society, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 17 key metrics. The data set ranges from the gap between female and male executives to the disparity in unemployment rates for women and men.

Women’s Equality in Alabama (1=Best; 25=Avg.):

• 45th – Earnings Gap
• 24th – Executive Positions Gap
• 22nd – Work Hours Gap
• 41st – Minimum-Wage Workers Gap
• 35th – Unemployment Rate Gap
• 43rd – Entrepreneurship Rate Gap
• 37th – Political Representation Gap

Utah, Idaho, Texas, South Carolina and Louisiana made up the bottom 5 on the list, while the top 5 were Maine, Hawaii, Nevada, New York and New Mexico.

"Experimental research has demonstrated that employers discriminate against mothers, while fathers are not similarly impacted," said Aubrey Westfall, Associate Professor of Political Science at Wheaton College. "This means that mothers have a harder time getting hired. Once in the workplace, fathers tend to have higher salaries than men without children, while mothers earn lower salaries relative to other women. This is at least partly because women with children are less likely to be promoted or assigned big projects that come with salary increases."

Westfall added, "These things mean that the US has one of the lowest female labor force participation rates among advanced industrialized countries, which hurts the economy overall."