The highest proportions of college-educated women continue to work in teaching or nursing. The Associated Press reports the study found the most popular occupations for women are secretaries, bookkeepers, sales supervisors, nurses, waitresses, receptionists and cooks.

Nursing and teaching fail to crack the top-ten list of the most common occupations among men. The AP notes that women and men share just to two in a list of the most common occupations: sales supervisors and cooks. The study is based on statistics from the Census Bureau.

Women have achieved parity with men in obtaining four-year college degrees and are more likely to work in managerial and professional careers today than twenty years ago. The authors of the report cite a gender gap in the technology sector and the sciences.

"The good news is that women have made great strides in education and the work force," says Mary Ellen Smyth, president of the association's Educational Foundation. "The bad news is that the new high-tech economy is leaving women behind. It's not that women are hitting a glass ceiling in the high-tech sector. It's that they don't have the keys to open the door."

In order for women to move into more better-paying, higher-status occupations, more focus needs to be placed on advanced education in science, engineering and technology, the authors of the report tell the AP.

"Education in computer and information technology fields is critical to thriving in the new high-tech economy," says Jacqueline Woods, AAUW's Executive Director. "And with only 28 percent of women studying in a field that will prepare them for work in science, engineering, or information technology, we've got a real problem."

Links

• Associated Press article, via the Washington Post (registration required)
• American Association of University Women