US wage gap puts rentals out of reach of single women: research
Single women cannot afford to rent a small apartment in nearly all of the biggest US cities but single men could manage to lease in a third of those locations, a reflection of the gender wage gap, research shows.
The Midwestern cities of Wichita, Kansas and Tulsa, Oklahoma are the only two of the 50 largest cities where the median income of single women can pay for a studio or one-bedroom apartment, according to research by RentCafe.com, an online apartment search company.
Across the United States, women working full time are paid 80 percent of what men are paid, according to US Census Bureau statistics.
In the 50 largest US cities, a woman makes only 74 cents for every dollar earned by a man, a gender wage gap of 26 percent, according to RentCafe.com.
In those cities, single men make an average of $32,451 a year, while single women average $24,115, it said.
Globally, the gender wage gap is as small as 6 percent in New Zealand and as wide as 37 percent in South Korea among the 35 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The RentCafe.com research, published this month on its website, used the US industry standard that housing costs should not comprise more than 30 percent of one's income.
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