Find a Job You Really Want In
And Massachusetts is no exception. Granted, some places are doing better than others for women’s career opportunities and we are here to point out the places that offer the most opportunity for working women.
With that being said, if you have the opportunity to choose where to work, we at Zippia want to provide you with the research to make an informed decision. To that end, we looked at data for all the places in Massachusetts to identify the ones with more opportunities for women relative to other places in the Bay State.
More specifically, we looked at the top level metrics like pay equality and job opportunities. And, at the end of the day, we were left with this set of of the top ten best places for working women in Massachusetts:
- Somerville
- Cambridge
- Watertown
- Waltham
- Easthampton
- Peabody
- Boston
- Melrose
- Quincy
- Methuen
Read on to see how we came up with this list and a closer look at the top ten places. And congratulations to Somerville for leading the pack when it comes to women’s working opportunities in Massachusetts.
How We Determined The Best Places In Massachusetts For Working Women
There are two aspects that we wanted to look at when it came to job opportunities for women:
- The general economic climate of a place
- The economic climate for women in a place
It goes without saying that a bad job market overall will impact women just as much as men. But we also want to catch the added discrimination women face on pay and job opportunity.
To that end, we dove into the 2013 American Community Survey to see what data was available. After considering the options, we landed on this set of criteria:
- Pay Gap for full time workers (Median Female Earnings / Median Male Earnings)
- Participation Gap for working age population (Female Participation Rate – Male Participation Rate)
- Cost of living expressed as median rent as a percent of female earnings
- Overall unemployment rate
We ranked each of the 53 places in Massachusetts with over 5,000 working adults from 1 to 53 in each category, with a lower ranking being better.
We then averaged across the rankings to create a quality of women’s work opportunity index. We then deemed the place scoring the lowest, Somerville, the “Best Place For Working Women In Massachusetts”.
Read on to see more information about the top ten.
1. Somerville
Pay Gap: 89.57%
Partcipation Gap: 1.08%
2. Cambridge
Pay Gap: 80.39%
Partcipation Gap: 2.75%
3. Watertown
Pay Gap: 80.09%
Partcipation Gap: -.72%
4. Waltham
Pay Gap: 73.68%
Partcipation Gap: .50%
5. Easthampton
Pay Gap: 75.03%
Partcipation Gap: 2.10%
6. Peabody
Pay Gap: 73.79%
Partcipation Gap: -.94%
7. Boston
Pay Gap: 88.33%
Partcipation Gap: -.31%
8. Melrose
Pay Gap: 69.38%
Partcipation Gap: 2.82%
9. Quincy
Pay Gap: 88.12%
Partcipation Gap: -4.65%
10. Methuen
Pay Gap: 72.26%
Partcipation Gap: -1.86%
Author
Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.
