The District of Columbia has topped the list of best U.S. cities for working women for the third consecutive year, it was revealed in a study recently released by the New York-based personal finance site MagnifyMoney.
The District has an overall score of 70.5 this year, which is four points down from last year’s list.
D.C.’s strong policies in parental and pregnancy workplace protection (that received 69 points) played a key role in the high score the city received. (Boston scored the highest — with 80 — for parental and pregnancy workplace protection.)
“Nearly 44 percent of managers in the nation’s capital are women — the highest percentage of all the metros we studied, tied with Virginia Beach, Va,” the company’s report said.
According to the study, 31.7 percent of businesses in D.C. are owned by women and 43.9 percent of managers are female.
The median pay gap between men and women is 17.1 percent, which is 16.4 percent in Boston, 15.5 percent in San Francisco and Hartford, CT, and 14.6 percent in Sacramento, CA — the lowest.
Five percent of women are unemployed in D.C., while the figure is 4.5 percent in Seattle and Boston, 4.6 percent in San Francisco, 3.6 percent in Denver and 3.2 percent in Minneapolis.
A total of 30.8 percent among state legislators are women in the District. In San Francisco, 31.7 percent are female and in Seattle, 40.8 percent are women.
The other places that made the top 10 best cities for working women are as follows:
2- Seattle
3- San Francisco
4- Denver
5- Hartford, CT
6- Sacramento, CA
7- Minneapolis
8- Baltimore
9- Boston
10- Portland