- Only 3.5% of firefighters are women.
- It took until 2018 for a woman to be nominated for an Oscar in cinematography.
- Women hold 7.8% of aerospace engineering jobs.
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Women have made incredible progress in joining the workforce, fighting for equal pay, and rising to the top of their fields. But some career paths have more progress left to make than others.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) 2019 databook on women in the labor force tracked the percentages of women in a variety of occupations. The data comes from the Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted by BLS and the US Census Bureau, and included 60,000 participants from all 50 states.
Here are 10 jobs where women are still underrepresented, according to the data.
In the US, 19% of software developers are women.
Tech is still a notoriously sexist field: A recent study claims that “more than a third of tech industry employees have experienced or witnessed sexism.”
Only 24.4% of farmers in the US are women.
Less than 10% of leadership positions in agriculture are filled by women.
Women make up just 9.9% of the construction industry.
Groups like Professional Women in Construction (PWC) seek to support and empower women in the industry with chapters in different cities.
Only 39.9% of financial analysts are female.
Financial analysts help companies make business decisions by analyzing financial data and making economic predictions. Women currently make up just over a third of the field.
Women make up 7.8% of aerospace engineers.
Aerospace engineers are, quite literally, rocket scientists. They also design planes, satellites, and missiles.
In the US, 17.6% of clergy is female.
Some religious sects don't ordain women as clergy, which contributes to the disparity and is referred to by some as the "stained glass ceiling."
Television, video, and motion picture camera operators and editors are predominantly male, with women making up 21.4% of the field.
Rachel Morrison became the first woman to be nominated for an Oscar in cinematography in 2018.
About half of architecture students are women, but they are underrepresented in the field itself, which is only 25.5% female.
The New York Times reports that many women in architecture face discrimination from male colleagues and are often not paid equally.
5.2% of US aircraft pilots and flight engineers are female.
Conde Nast Traveler reports that the difficulties of breaking into the field include the costs of flight training, gaps in women's science and math education, and the difficult work-life balance.
Most firefighters in the US are male — 3.5% of them are women.
Some firehouses in the US are still hiring female firefighters for the first time.
- Read more:
- The global gender gap will take more than 100 years to close - here are the countries with the highest and lowest gender gap around the world
- 11 surprising double standards that still exist for women in the US
- Meghan Markle has been branded 'difficult' by tabloids. It's the same sexism that demonizes driven women in the workplace.
- The most powerful woman the year you were born
