Homestate Shame
Texas shame: Lone Star State ranked one of the very worst states in America for women
Texans have a lot to boast about, but this certainly isn’t one of them. According to a new survey by WalletHub, the Lone Star State ranks among the five worst states for women’s equality. Only three states should be more embarrassed than Texas, which landed at No. 47 — Idaho, Utah and Wyoming.
The country as a whole still has a long way to go in closing the gender gap. The United States ranks outside the Top 20 according to the World Economic Forum’s 2013 list of the most gender-equal countries, and the Center for American Progress reports that women are still woefully underrepresented in leadership positions. Which makes a No. 47 ranking within the U.S. for Texas an even tougher pill to swallow.
To determine its list of the best and worst states for women’s equality, the number crunchers at WalletHub examined 10 key metrics in three areas — workplace environment, education and health, and political empowerment — ranging from pay discrepancies and the gap in the number of female and male executives to the disparity between women’s and men’s life expectancies to the imbalance of their political representation.
Researchers culled data came from the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Women’s Law Center, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Center for American Women and Politics.
Texas also ranks in the bottom five for largest executive positions gap — again, No. 47 out of 50. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the top five overall states for women were Hawaii, New York, Maryland, Maine and Nevada.
