Utah ranked worst state for women’s equality
Aug 22, 2024, 7:00 AM
Utah has been ranked the worst state in women's equality by WalletHub, a ranking the state has held for a decade. (Canva)
(Canva)
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah has been ranked the worst state for women’s equality by WalletHub.
While the article was published on Aug 19, 2024, this problem is nothing new. The Beehive State has held this rank for the past decade.
While groups like A Bolder Way Forward and Utah Women Run are working hard to promote women leaders in the state, it’s a very slow process.
“At the rate that we’re going, it will be 3 to 4 decades to make notable progress.” said Susan Madsen, Director of Utah State University’s Utah Women in Leadership Project.
The WalletHub women’s equality study is based on gap measurement metrics in the following:
- Income
- Executive positions
- Work hours
- Educational attainment
- Political representation.
The Utah Women in Leadership Project and Zion’s Bank commissioned their own study several years ago based on the same metrics to make sure that Utah was being properly represented.
They came to the same conclusion: Utah has the least equality for women in the nation. Madsen believes Utah’s religious and conservative background has a lot to do with it.
“Anytime you have people saying ‘men should do this, women should do this,’ you tend to have more power dynamics, with men having significantly more power in the state of Utah than women. And that relates to pretty much everything,” said Madsen.
Education disparity
Education is an area where Utah has a lot of room to grow, and it starts young.
The disparity between boys and girls eighth grade math scores is the largest in the country. Madsen attributes that to social norms and messaging.
“Research tells us that girls are not comfortable with math or they’re receiving messages that girls shouldn’t be good at math. We have smart girls in the state of Utah. It’s not biology, it’s not genetic, it’s actually socialization. If girls and young women are not feeling confident or not feeling like they should be good at math, it impacts what classes they take in high school, it impacts what major they choose in college, and it impacts what fields they go into later on,” Madsen said.
STEM careers are often some of the highest paying jobs, and are mainly male-dominated.
Organizations like SheTech are working hard to bring STEM to young women in Utah. But there are other education gaps plaguing Utah.
“The biggest gap, by far — no other state is even close –between men and women, is graduate degree attainment,” Madsen said.
Utah men are above the national average for graduate degrees and Utah women are below.
