Report ranks Oklahoma 5th-worst state for women to live in, 48th in gender pay gap

Mar. 2—While progress has been made when it comes to women's lives in the United States, several studies show Oklahoma still has work to do in order to become more women-friendly.

On the first day of Women's History Month — which has been around since 1987 and as Women's History Week since 1982 — personal finance website WalletHub released its report, "2021's Best & Worst States for Women," showing that Oklahoma is the fifth worst state for women to live in.

In order to determine how women are faring and which state offers them the best opportunities, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across two key dimensions: women's economic and social well-being, and women's health and safety.

Those dimensions were examined using 26 relevant key metrics graded on a 100-point scale, including median earnings for female workers, COVID-19 death rate during the past week, women's preventative health care, high school graduation rates for women, female uninsured rates and female homicide rates.

The Sooner State came out as the 47th overall best state with a total score of 41.60, ranking 46th in women's economic and social well-being and 49th in women's health and safety.

Oklahoma showed up in the worst top five in three indicators: 47th in the percentage of women who voted in the 2016 presidential election, 50th in female uninsured rate and tied for 40th with Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Missouri and Alaska in female homicide rate per 100,000.

Other rankings include 26th in median earnings for female workers; 17th in unemployment rate for women; 43rd in share of women in poverty; 21st in share of women-owned businesses; 38th in high school graduation rate for women; 46th in women's life expectancy at birth; 39th in quality of women's hospitals; and 46th in women's preventative health care.

WalletHub ranked Minnesota as the best state in the country for women to live in, followed by Maine, Vermont, North Dakota and the District of Columbia. Mississippi was ranked as the worst, followed by Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

Texas ranked 45th and Kansas came in at 36th. For a deeper dive into the study and how experts ranked the states, visit WalletHub's website at www.wallethub.com/edu/best-and-worst-states-for-women/10728.

In addition to WalletHub, Business.org took a look at how women at doing with equality in the work force — more specifically, the gender pay gap — on the first day of Women's History Month.

It found that Oklahoma ranks 48th for the smallest gender pay gap.

Oklahoma women earn 27% less than their male counterparts, which means they effectively stop getting paid on Sept. 24, according to the Business.org report.

The average female salary in Oklahoma is $36,494, and for males it's $49,721. The lowest average salary for women, $33,140, is in Mississippi, which WalletHub named the worst state for women to live in, and Washington, D.C., has the highest, $75,750. Women don't have a higher average salary than men in any U.S. state, according to the report.

The report said there are multiple reasons for pay disparities, including lack of equal access to funding for female-owned businesses, unequal hiring practices and corporate cultures that tend to promote men or where men are more likely to get raises.

Since 1979, the pay gap has gotten steadily better over time, but the report said in the last 10 years it has reached a stalemate, drifting between 81%-82% since 2010 with "little sign of progress."

"We're at a crucial point in the history of the gender pay gap," said writer Andrew Mosteller in the report. "The national income disparity between men and women is showing signs of stagnation. The only way to take the next crucial steps towards workplace equality is to change deeply ingrained practices and cultures that tend to promote men over equally deserving women."

In Garfield County, women earned 63% of what their male counterparts earned — $31,809 for women, compared to $50,127 for men, according to a News & Eagle article.

A 2020 Business.org report found that Enid was the third-worst paying metro area for women in the nation, linking the gender pay gap to "significantly greater hurdles for women prospective business owners."

In a December News & Eagle article, local leaders discussed the roots of the gender pay disparity and their hopes for overcoming it.

Lisa Powell, executive director of Enid Regional Development Alliance who formed Enid Women in Business, said women aren't equally represented in C-Suite, corporate board rooms, as business owners or in leadership positions.

The gender pay gap is not unique to any field of work or geographical area, said Cheri Ezzell, executive director of Community Development Support Association, who said in December that she'd seen "ongoing disparities to cultural momentum" in nonprofits.

Other local women leaders voiced other reasons for the gap, including women not being heard, absence of negotiation and women expected to fill the traditional role of caregiver, along with the gender pay gap being a "weapon and result of domestic abuse."

Kelci McKendrick is police and court reporter for the Enid News & Eagle.

Have a question about this story? Do you see something we missed? Do you have a story idea for Kelci? Send an email to kelcim@enidnews.com.