Women's Equality: CT Ranks 23rd in the U.S., Analysis Indicates

With Women’s Equality Day – commemorating when women gained the right to vote in the United States – celebrated this past weekend, the personal-finance website WalletHub has released its report on 2023’s Best & Worst States for Women's Equality.  Connecticut landed in the middle-of-the-pack, ranking 23rd among the states.

Leading the way among the states were Hawaii, Alaska, Maine,Delaware, Vermont, California, Oregon, New York, New Mexico and Nevada.  At the back-of-the-pack were North Dakota, Missouri, Georgia, Idaho, Texas, and, at number 50, Utah.

WalletHub compared the 50 states across 17 key metrics. The data set ranges from the gap between female and male executives to the disparity in unemployment rates for women and men.  In every state, women earn less than men, according to the analysis. Rhode Island has the lowest gap, with women earning 8.50 percent less, whereas Utah has the highest, 25.40 percent.

Connecticut has the highest unemployment-rate gap favoring women, with 1.60 percent more unemployed men. The unemployment rate is equal for men and women in Missouri, Nevada, Ohio and North Dakota.

"Connecticut is the 23rd best state for women's equality in 2023. The state registers the smallest unemployment rate gap and a very low disparity in entrepreneurship between men and women,” said WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez.

“However,” she continued, “it ranks towards the bottom in terms of higher-income inequality. Our study also highlighted a big gap in education, with Connecticut and other states sharing the number 1 spot for the disparity in advanced educational attainment.”

Gonzalez also noted that “Even though Connecticut seems to promote equal work opportunities for both men and women, there's room for improvement in the academic environment and income growth."

Connecticut ranked 20th in Education & Health metrics, 22nd  in Political Empowerment and 29th  in Workplace Environment.

Among the disparities across the country:  Women make up more than 50 percent of the population, but constitute only around 28% of legislators and 32.5% of Fortune 500 board seats.

Comparing the U.S. to other nations, the news is not good.  In 2023, the U.S. failed to place in the top 10 — or even the top 30 — of the World Economic Forum’s ranking of 146 countries based on gender equality, WalletHub reported. The U.S. ranked 43rd, which is worse than the previous year’s rank of 27th.