Women hold more U.S. jobs than men—but still earn far less starting the day they graduate

For only the third time in American history, women hold more payroll jobs than men—and that trend isn’t likely to reverse anytime soon.

Yet even as women pull ahead on job counts, men continue to out-earn them at nearly every stage of their careers, starting the day they leave campus.

A new study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found that women who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in the class of 2023 earned an average starting salary of $59,778, while men with the same degree earned $72,190.

That works out to women taking home roughly 83 cents for every dollar their male classmates made—before their careers have even begun.

Women last held a payroll majority only twice before—briefly during the Great Recession around 2010, and again just before the pandemic in early 2020.

Both times a downturn had wiped out male-dominated jobs in construction and manufacturing.

What makes this crossover different is that it arrived without a recession.

Women have long been paid less, but they now dominate the raw number of jobs held, particularly in the post-pandemic era, when men’s employment failed to bounce back the way women’s did.

Over the past 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of employed women grew by more than 870,000, while men shed nearly 1.5 million jobs.

In a tight labor market, female-dominated fields such as health care, education, and hospitality have logged consistent gains.

Men accounted for just 2% of the jobs added in August’s report , with women making up 158,000 of the 162,000 total positions created.

The imbalance has intensified concern about men’s declining presence in the workplace .

Roughly 7 million fewer men are employed today than in the 1990s, and the labor force participation rate for men aged 20 and older slipped to 69.4% as of August 2026, down from 75.8% in August 2006.

Explanations vary.