Financial technology company, SmartAsset, recently did a study identifying where women are most successful in the United States, with a focus on earnings, education, and employment. They compared 200 of the largest U.S. cities across five metrics.
The five metrics are percentage of women older than 25 with a bachelor’s degree, median annual earnings for full-time working women, percentage of business owners who are women, housing costs as a percentage of earning for full-time working women, and percentage of full-time working women earning $100,000 or more.
Three of the top 10 cities where women are most successful were found to be in the Pacific Northwest, including Seattle, Bellevue, and Portland. In all three of these cities, at least 57% of women hold a bachelor’s degree and more than 23% of women earn upwards of $100,000.
Bellevue, Washington ranks fourth best for both median earnings for women and the percentage of working women who earn over $100,000. The median earnings for women are $93,878, and the percentage of working women earning a six figure salary is approximately 47%. Bellevue also has the seventh-highest concentration of women with a bachelor’s degree at 66.76%.
The top three cities that women are most successful in are Washington D.C., Alexandria, Virginia, and Cary, North Carolina.
According to the study, data from the Census Bureau shows an increase of 17.63% between 2017 to 2021. As pointed out in the findings, that increase, over 10 years, is more than 51%.