Women earn less than men in each of the states of the United States ... and in almost every part of the world. In the United States, this has been attributed to factors such as career choices or wishes for motherhood.
However, in Puerto Rico the gender gap has been reversed.
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According to the US Census Bureau, the average salary for women in Puerto Rico was $ 24,486, in 2016, the most recent year for which there is data. The average salary for men was $ 23,711. The difference is 3%.
The small gap is not something new. The data from Puerto Rico in 2008 show that women earned an average of 1% more than men.
By way of comparison, American women, when taken together, earned an average of 76% of what men perceived in 2016, according to census data.
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So, what is the reason for the small but statistically significant difference? A study conducted by researchers at the University of Puerto Rico found that Puerto Rican women are, on average, more educated than men (11.9 years of education versus 11.2 years for men).
In the United States, in general, the two sexes are almost equally educated, with women outperforming men in 0.01 years.
However, the same study also points to situations that reflect the same career inequalities that other American women face. For example, they found that the wage gap in Puerto Rico sometimes favored men when factors such as education and the number of children were equated between men and women