Women are overrepresented among workers paid low wages relative to their size in the workforce

The bars show the share of women in the labor force and the share of women paid low wages. Over half (50.9%) of low-wage workers are women, despite women making up less than half (46.8%) of the labor force.

Bar chart comparing the share of female workers in the 2022 California workforce to the share of female workers employed in low-wage jobs that same year. While 46.8% of all workers are female, 50.9% of low-wage workers are female.
In 2022, the value of the low-wage threshold is $19.69. The sample includes workers who live and work in California, were employed last week but not self-employed, ages 16+, and with non-zero earnings last week.
Chart: UC Berkeley Labor CenterSource: American Community Survey 2022 • Get the dataEmbed Download imageDownload PDFDownload SVGCreated with Datawrapper