Tuesday marked Equal Pay Day in the U.S., the approximate date in each year to which women would have to work to match their male counterparts' wages from the previous year alone.
Although the gender pay gap improved in recent decades, statistics suggest that women, on average, still earn about 80 percent of what men earn. That’s evidently not the case, however, among chemical engineers.
The latest American Community Survey, conducted each year by the U.S. Census Bureau, indicated that chemical engineering was one of just a handful of industries in which women out-earned men.
The analysis showed that female chemical engineers earned a median salary of $101,063 in 2015 -- the most recent available data -- while men in the industry earned $100,944.
Men, however, accounted for nearly 85 percent of the estimated 56,266 chemical engineers in the U.S. that year.
The Houston Chronicle reported that chemical engineering was one of just seven sectors with higher pay for women. The others were architectural and engineering managers, dietitians and nutritionists, electricians, industrial truck and tractor operators, news analysts and reporters, residential advisers and wholesale and retail buyers.
