The definition of the 'Yuppie' needs rewriting. No longer is hunger for social status and taste for financial reward solely confined to the male species. In a recent paper, PEW-researchers find that 66% of young American women call career success "one of the most important things" in their lives, opposed to 59% of men in the same age category.
In 2010, women made up almost half of the labor force (46.7%). In 1997, their share was around 46.2% which compares to only 38.1% in 1970.
Women's participation in the work force has significantly increased, as has women's educational attainment. The PEW-research shows that in the US women top men in both college enrollment and college completion: 44% of women aged 18-24 were enrolled in college or graduate programs compared with just 38% of their male peers.
In the age-group 25-29 the difference is even larger: 36% of the women have a bachelor's degree, compared with only 28% of men in the same age group. Women first surpassed men in this regard in the early nineties, and the gap has been widening ever since.
Equal pay in sight
In spite of their educational advantage and increased presence in the workplace, women continue to lag behind men in terms of earning power. In 2010, women who were full-time or salaried workers had median weekly earnings of $669, compared with $824 for their male counterparts. Still, women have made big strides in attaining equal pay.
When data of this sort began being collected in 1979, women earned 62% of a man's average salary. After steadily rising for the past two and a half decades, the growth in the women-to-men earnings ratio settled around 2004 and has remained in the 80-81% range since then.
