Best and Worst States for Women’s Equality: Maryland's Ranking

Women's equality in pay and job opportunities varies across the country, and America is losing ground globally, according to the personal finance website WalletHub, which recently ranked the states for gender equality.

With Women’s Equality Day coming up on Aug. 26 and the U.S. in 28th position on the Global Gender Gap Index — falling eight places since 2014 — the website conducted an in-depth analysis of 2016’s Best & Worst States for Women's Equality. Data looked at ranges from the gap between female and male executives to the disparity between women’s and men’s unemployment rates.

Maryland had a good showing, ranking eighth nationally, and placed at No. 4 in the criteria for smallest disparity between women and men in hours worked.

The top 10 states are:

1. Hawaii
2. Alaska
3. Maine
4. California
5. Vermont
6. New Hampshire
7. Minnesota
8. Maryland
9. New York
10. Wisconsin

The states with the biggest gender gaps are New Jersey, then Georgia, and Utah is dead last.

"Apart from unequal representation in executive leadership, salary inequity also has been central to the gender-gap debate. Few experts dispute the existence of an earnings gap between women and men, but accurately measuring the disparity remains a challenge," WalletHub writes. "The fact remains, however, that about two-thirds of minimum-wage workers across the country are female, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Unfortunately, women still have too few voices in government to help them achieve full social and economic equality in the near future."

Best vs. Worst

• In every state, women earn less than men. Wyoming has the highest gap, with women earning 32.3 percent less, whereas Hawaii has the lowest, 7.2 percent.
• Men have longer average workdays than women. North Dakota has the highest work-hours gap, with men working 19.3 percent longer. Nevada has the lowest, with men working 9 percent longer.
• In nearly every state, women represent the highest percentage of minimum-wage workers. Louisiana has the highest gap, with 56 percent more females. Alaska, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming have an equal ratio of females to males.
• Alaska has the highest unemployment-rate gap favoring women, with 2.1 percent more unemployed men. Utah has the highest gap favoring men, with 1 percent more unemployed women. The unemployment rate is equal for men and women in Indiana and Wisconsin.
• In every state legislature, male lawmakers outnumber their female counterparts. Wyoming has the highest gap, with 84.6 percent more males. Colorado has the lowest, with 27.6 percent more males.

Methodology

To gauge the scope of gender-based disparities in the U.S., WalletHub’s analysts compared the 50 states across three key dimensions: 1) Workplace Environment, 2) Education and 3) Political Empowerment. They evaluated these categories using 15 relevant metrics related to workplace environment, political empowerment and education. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with 100 representing complete gender equality. For all metrics, the website compared the differences between women and men. In certain states and for certain metrics, women have an advantage over men, and the authors therefore gave equal credit to the states where gender inequality was absent.

WalletHub then calculated overall scores for each state using the weighted average across all metrics, which was used to construct the final ranking.

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