Here's How Gender Stacks Up In The Dallas Workforce

DALLAS, TX — One could argue progress in recent years has encouraged women to pursue job fields traditionally held by men, and Dallas has the chops to prove it. Dallas has a female chief of police, a former female county sheriff and a female district attorney. But 2016 data from the U.S. Census Bureau confirms that jobs in specific fields are still heavily gendered.

Take medicine, for example. 77.1 percent of job fields designated as "healthcare practitioner and technical operations" are held by women in Dallas County. Further broken down, categories of "health diagnosing and treating practitioners and other occupations" is 69.5 percent female and "health technologists and technicians" is 76.5 percent female.

The most male-heavy field is construction and extraction occupations, which is dominated by a staggering 98.1 percent men. Service operations jobs like firefighting and policing are 71.3 percent male also.

The most female-heavy field is healthcare operations, which boasts an total of 86.4 percent of female workers.

The least gendered job fields in Dallas County are food preparation and service, and sales, which are 49.7 percent female and 50.8 percent female respectively.

Between the years of 2015 and 2016, the percentage of females in the workforce grew only one-tenth of a percent, up to 45.5 percent. Overall job numbers remained quite similar between the years with 86.4 of healthcare jobs held by women and 98.1 percent of construction jobs held by men.

Data compiled from occupation community survey data provided by U.S. Census Bureau.
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