Women out-earning men

A study by a Queens College demographer found that twenty-something women in some big cities are making more money than twenty-something men. The report shows that women of all educational levels ages 21 to 30 living in New York City and working full time made 117 percent of men’s wages. In Dallas that figure is 120 percent. Women in their 20s are making more than men in Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis, too.

Experts in the New York Times story (linked above) speculate that since more women are graduating from college than ever before, they're moving to big cities rather than staying in smaller towns, and thus drive up the number of female college grads in the bigger cities, thus driving up the salaries.

Nationally, women still lag, with women in their 20s making a median income of $25,467, compared with $28,523 for men.

They also lag in older age brackets.

I think the salaries will even out and eventually drop below men's averages as the women reach their 30s and 40s and start families, because other studies have shown that most women prefer to either not work at all or work part-time in the early years of their kids lives. So I don't see this as a giant trend in women's progress in this country. But it's still kind of interesting... read the story for more.