Gender Inequalities in Louisiana

Gender inequalities have persisted for many years, leaving women with far more barriers than men and restricting their access to basic rights. Throughout the years, progress has been made around the world to counteract these inequalities, however, there is still much work to be done. Even developed countries such as the United States face discrimination against women, in some states more severe than others. We chose to study Louisiana because of stories we have heard and its low rankings in terms of gender equality. Several surveys have found that Louisiana is one of the states that is the worst to live in as a woman, and we wanted to further examine why that might be the case. We will explore gender disparities in Louisiana, a state that was once a strong part of the Confederacy. From Louisiana’s toiled past to the present, we will look into demographic gaps, education, workforce participation and pay, and economic outcomes. By examining these facets, we can better understand the scope and impact of gender-based discrimination on women across the state.

Demographic Gaps

To start, we will break down some of the state demographics in Louisiana. As of 2023, 909,420 women between the ages of 15 and 44 resided there. In total, women outnumber the men, with 104 women for every 100 men in the state. This is a higher proportion of women to men than in the country as a whole (102:100).

fig 1

As we can see from the figure above, the distribution of women in Louisiana is quite diverse regarding race/ethnicity, which will be put into perspective when looking into disparities to see if there are discrepancies and racial discrimination alongside gender discrimination. 

Financially, over 1 in 5 women (20.1%) ages 18-64 had incomes below the federal poverty line in 2019. This is the highest threshold in the country for working-age women. On the other hand, in Louisiana, 14.4% of men in the same age range lived with incomes below the federal poverty line as of 2019. This is a stark 5.7% difference between the two genders. Furthermore, we see that 29.4% of those in poverty were African American, followed closely by 26.1% Latino, 17.1% Native American, and 11.7% Asian American. Only 12.7% of those in poverty in Louisiana were white, even though we saw previously from Figure 1 that over half of the population is white. From this, we can see that intersectionality is a huge factor, as factors like race, age, and geography also play a role in and amplify the inequalities.

Education

We will next move into education, looking into potential disparities in schooling and what the distributions of men vs. women look like in higher education. Beginning with the enrollment ratio of girls to boys within primary and secondary schools within Lousianna, “School enrollment, primary and secondary (gross), gender parity index (GPI) in the United States was reported at 0.98683% in 2020”. This ratio has become more favorable for females within primary and secondary education since 1999 when the female-to-male ratio was 87 to 100, so much progress has been made. Furthermore, compared to the national average in 2020, which was 97 to 100, Louisiana has reached higher levels of gender parity. 

Looking further into education, we can see where Louisiana stands in higher education, both between men and women and between the state and the US as a whole. The figure below outlines different levels of education and the ratio of males vs. females that are more likely to attain them.

  fig 2    

As seen in Fig. 2, men are quite a bit more likely to have no education, or some but less than high school, than women. Men are astoundingly 44% more likely to have less than a high school education, compared to their female counterparts. This may be due to societal or familial values that lead males to drop out early for work. Males also are much more likely to complete professional programs or doctorates, whereas women are more likely to obtain anything from some college to a master’s. We see this echoed in college enrollment in Louisiana. At Louisiana Colleges, there are 39.19% male students to an overwhelming 60.81% female students. All public institutions in Louisiana saw a decrease of 3.2% in male students (and a corresponding increase of 3.2% for female students) between Fall 2011 and Fall 2020. We could potentially see this upward trend of educated females reflected in other areas, such as economic equality.

Workforce Participation and Pay

Louisiana is one of the worst states in the country for economic equality across genders. As of 2023, women made, on average, 66 cents for every dollar made by a man. Another article breaks it down more and highlights that black women only make 47 cents to each man’s dollar, and Latina women make 53 cents for each man’s dollar. This gap is shown to exist across workplaces and is prevalent in all fields regardless of educational background. It is also seen that the jobs that women more heavily fill tend to be those that pay less than jobs filled primarily by men. 

This is also reflected in the education field, as Louisiana has significantly more female teachers than males. The average salary for a K-12 educator is around $52,000, which is $12,000 less than the national average teacher salary. Research has shown that about 81% of all teachers are females, which provides strong evidence for the previous claim. 

There are also significantly fewer female business owners than males. As of the 2017 census, 45,650 males owned firms, whereas women accounted for less than ⅓, which 13,170 firms. This has been progress in this over the years. Louisiana saw an increase from 27.4 to 36.5 percent of female business owners in the last 7 years.

An infograph from 2018 states that if trends continue, women in Louisiana will not reach levels of equal pay until the year 2115. This projection was done using data from between 1960-2000, and recent data does not show any major changes or progress, so this is still very much a possibility. The same infograph puts the pay gap into perspective: 

“The difference between women’s and men’s median annual earnings, $15,500, would pay for 4.0 years of community college tuition in Louisiana.”

Household setups like families with single mothers could be severely worse off compared to others.  We can look into household structure to see if it is a good determinant of predicting the gender disparity. The table below shows data from the US Census on different household structures and median income. We can see that the structure with the lowest median income in Louisiana is that of female householders with no spouse present. There is quite a gap between female householders’ income and males’. We can also see the average income of single females with children vs. single males with children, and compare those with the income of married parents with children.

As we can see, there is a large difference between the incomes of males and females, regardless of their household structure/status. Single males make almost $17,000 more on average than single females, and males with children make over $24,000 more than females with children. This could be due to several factors, such as women not holding high-level positions in the workplace, or women not being able to secure jobs due to gender-based discrimination.

With such a large gap in earnings, we can look into race and ethnicity to see if any discrepancies exist there. The figure below highlights median earnings across different racial groups. With it, we can analyze disparities between men and women, and see if they differ based on race/ethnic groups. 

fig 3

From this figure, we can see the median earnings are lower for women across the board, however, there do not appear to be any groups where it is significantly more prevalent. We do see some variation, leading us to believe that racial discrimination affects both men and women, and doesn’t seem to target women disproportionately. Therefore, for this graph, gender-based factors largely drive this gap and race may not be as big of a factor in earnings.

Conclusion

In conclusion, compared to the rest of the nation Louisiana exhibits significant disparities between men and women in terms of demographics, education, workforce, and socioeconomic factors. As seen throughout the paper, Louisiana’s demographics regarding the gender wage gap and unequal treatment within socioeconomic areas suggest the presence of gender discrimination. While there are some redeeming areas in which women are seen to excel, regarding secondary education completion, Louisiana as a whole seems to lag in the push for gender equality in comparison to the progress of the nation as a whole. All of the data we looked into has come out since 2018 and is pretty recent, continuing the notion that although much progress has been made, much more is needed to reach any sort of true gender parity. Furthermore, it confirms our main reasons for choosing Louisianna and solidifies the notion of institutional inequity that women continue to face. 

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