Nearly one-third of all working women in Utah over the age of 16 have jobs in office and administrative support positions, while the top career choice for men in the state is sales.
Utah's most common occupations for men and women are different, but so are the top jobs for each gender on a national scale. The figures for occupation are part of a Supplementary Survey completed by the Census Bureau in 2000, results from which were released Monday.
The second most common field for women in Utah is sales, followed by food preparation, building and grounds maintenance, then education, training and library occupations. The fifth most common career was management. These top five jobs were the same for women across the nation.
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Comparatively, the top four most common jobs for men, behind sales and related occupations, were production, construction trades, management and office and administrative support. Nationally, the top five occupations for men were sales and related occupations, production, management, construction trades and transportation and material moving occupations.
Pat Wheeler, on-site manager for employment at Weber State University career services, said men and women who are just entering the work force are often looking for jobs in the same fields.
"All the hot fields are pretty well-balanced," she said. "It seems like we have as many women as men in information technology. Also, some areas that were dominated by men 20 years ago no longer are."
She said about the same number of men and women enters accounting as well as MBA programs. Fields like criminal justice and law enforcement used to be all male, she said, and now they are seeing more women.
"Among college graduates there's more equity, I think. Also, it seems more balanced outside the state than inside," she said.
Anita Atkin, a receptionist at D.A. Davidson and Co. in Salt Lake City, says it's apparent to her that office and administrative jobs are dominated by women.
"That's just how it always is. We actually have two men in here, but usually it's mainly women," she said.
Some women may choose fields such as sales, food preparation or a receptionist job like Atkin's because they are entering the work force later in life and want a job that doesn't require additional education.
"In my case, I stayed at home and raised a family first, and I think that's true of a lot of women. I guess some go back to school, but I chose not to," Atkin said.
Although average incomes for individual occupations are not available, the median household income for Utah was $45,654 in 2000, adjusted for inflation.
Of more than 1 million workers 16 years and older in Utah, 905,000 drive to work, with 763,700 of them driving alone in vehicles, and 24,845 take public transportation, the survey said.
A much smaller number, 6,054, rides bicycles to work, while 37,250 work at home.
The average Utah commuter spends 20.8 minutes on the road each way to work, according to the survey.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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