The new yuppie is a she

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26 april 2012 | As young women have surpassed young men in educational attainment, they have also become more career-minded than their male counterparts. PEW Research Center presents remarkable statistics.

The definition of the ‘Yuppie’ needs rewriting. No longer ishunger for social status and taste for financial reward solelyconfined to the male species. In a recent paper, PEW-researchers find that 66% of young Americanwomen call career success “one of the most important things” intheir lives, opposed to 59% of men in the same agecategory. 

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 significantlyincreased, as has women’s educational attainment. The PEW-researchshows that in the US women top men in both college enrollment andcollege completion: 44% of women aged 18-24 were enrolled incollege or graduate programs compared with just 38% of their malepeers. 

In the age-group 25-29 the difference is even larger: 36% of thewomen have a bachelor’s degree, compared with only 28% of men inthe same age group. Women first surpassed men in this regard in theearly nineties, and the gap has been widening ever since. 

Equal pay in sight 

In spite of their educational advantage and increased presencein the workplace, women continue to lag behind men in terms ofearning power. In 2010, women who were full-time or salariedworkers had median weekly earnings of $669, compared with $824 fortheir male counterparts. Still, women have made big strides inattaining equal pay.

When data of this sort began being collected in 1979, womenearned 62% of a man’s average salary. After steadily rising for thepast two and a half decades, the growth in the women-to-menearnings ratio settled around 2004 and has remained in the 80-81%range since then.