Alaska has one of the largest wage gaps between men and women in the country, according to a new report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released Tuesday.
Women in Alaska who worked full-time in 2015 earned a median weekly pay of $787, while men earned $1,034 per week.
That means female workers in Alaska took home about 76 percent of what their male counterparts earned.
David Kong is a statistician with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. He said the mix of jobs available in Alaska is one factor contributing to the wage gap.
“In construction and extraction, which is a higher paid industry, it consists of 11.2 percent [of] men and only less than 1 percent [of] women,” Kong said. “So it has something to do in part with the occupational mix in the state.”
Although the ratio of women’s to men’s earnings in Alaska remains low in comparison to the rest of the country, overall earnings for both men and women are comparatively high. Nationwide, women earned $726 per week while men earned $895.
Shahla Farzan is a reporter with KBBI - Homer.
Shahla first caught the radio bug as a world music host for WMHC, the oldest college radio station operated exclusively by women. Before coming to KBBI, she worked at Capital Public Radio in Sacramento and as a science writer for the California Environmental Legacy Project. She is currently completing her Ph.D in ecology at the University of California-Davis, where she studies native bees.
When she's not producing audio stories, you can find Shahla beachcombing or buried in a good book.
