When it comes to ensuring equity for women, Utah has a long way to go.
Personal finance site WalletHub released a new report this month that compared all 50 U.S. states using 17 factors — from leadership gaps to unemployment rates — to assess women’s wellness and access to opportunities in each. According to its findings, Utah ranks worst in the nation, right after Texas. Meanwhile, states like Hawaii and Maine ranked highest.
Utah’s ranking reveals a gender gap that persists despite the state’s progress in other areas, such as its overall economy and infrastructure, WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo told The Story Exchange in an email. Indeed, although there have been advancements in other areas, Utah’s poor equality ranking has remained constant for the past nine years.
“The state’s disparities in income, education, and political representation clearly demonstrate that women in Utah face numerous barriers to achieving equality,” Lupo says.
To put that in numbers: Women in the Beehive State make just 73.1% of what men make on average, according to financial news site MarketWatch. And a 2024 Utah Women and Leadership Project report, conducted at Utah State University, found that only 9.3% of Utah women have obtained graduate degrees, compared to 14.1% of men.
Yes, the difference is especially stark when viewed from an education standpoint. The Utah State report also revealed that women of color who live in Utah are particularly less likely to complete high school and college; and eighth grade girls score significantly lower on math tests than boys – another disparity in which Utah leads the country.
Utah’s low ranking is also driven by the state’s “sizable gaps” in political representation, Lupo adds. Research from Utah State University shows that women make up only 26.9% of Utah’s legislators. “Such pronounced inequalities should serve as a call to action for the state to close these gaps and ensure that gender equality is not just an objective but a reality,” he says.
Effecting change involves engaging in open and honest workplace discussions with women, and setting mandates for companies that would require “at least 40% to 50% of non-executive directors on boards of publicly traded firms” to be women, Elizabeth Gregory, director of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality at the University of Houston, states in WalletHub’s report.
Experts like her also see opportunities for progress if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidential election in November. “The election of a female president would break the glass ceiling, and even [her] candidacy can spur discussions about how to guarantee equitable representation,” Gregory additionally notes.
