This analysis of women in the Portland Metro comes at a critical juncture for the regional economy. As outlined in the recent State of the Economy report, Oregon faces a troubling “new normal” characterized by eroding fundamentals: stagnant job growth, declining consumer confidence, and a fiscal system built on assumptions of growth that no longer hold. Within this challenging landscape, women’s economic participation and advancement – especially within the Portland Metro area – are not peripheral concerns but central to the region’s path forward.

Women’s workforce participation has increased meaningfully over the past decade, yet persistent disparities in earnings and leadership representation show that participation alone doesn’t guarantee economic security or advancement. As the region grapples with what “good growth” means in the Portland metro context, this analysis illuminates whose economic opportunities are expanding, whose remain constrained, and where structural barriers persist regardless of individual effort or qualification. The barriers that women face demonstrate how broader economic pressures on household costs, entrepreneurial dynamics, and workforce productivity, compound existing structural inequalities. Achieving resilience and growth requires unblocking economic participation of women across all backgrounds through targeted policy measures, not only as a matter of equity, but as an economic imperative for a state that cannot afford to leave talent and productivity on the table.

Full Report

To better understand the nuances and characteristics of economic opportunities for women in the Portland metro, it is helpful to first consider the broader workforce landscape. The workforce is composed of residents ages 16 and older who are either currently employed and working, employed but not working, or unemployed but actively seeking work. This means individuals who are disabled and unable to work, retirees, children, students and those who have not looked for a job in the past four weeks are excluded from the workforce count. In 2024, the Portland metro workforce was 1,318,058 people, representing 63 percent of women and 73 percent of men aged 16 and above, residing in the area.

The percentages of each gender participating in the workforce represent a metric called a workforce participation rate. Workforce participation rates are considered a key indicator of economic engagement, reflecting not only an individual’s ability to earn income, but also their access to benefits, and opportunities for skill development. For households headed by a single earner, participation in the workforce is often the primary mechanism through which families build assets, avoid poverty, and weather economic disruptions.

In 2014, 62 percent of women in the Portland Metro area participated in the workforce, compared to 74 percent of men. By 2024, women’s participation increased by 2 percentage points, to 64 percent. However, men’s participation remained unchanged at 74 percent. As a result, the overall workforce participation gender gap has shrunk over the decade, from 12 percent in 2014 to 10 percent in 2024.

Participation rates by gender alone, however, only tell us a summary of women’s experiences with economic engagement. Across the Portland Metro region, workforce engagement among women varies considerably by demographic characteristics and geography. The sections that follow examine these patterns in greater detail, exploring how place of residence, the presence and age of children, educational attainment, and race and ethnicity relate to women’s participation in the workforce.

Geography & Workforce Participation

Women’s participation in the Portland Metro workforce varies by geography, ranging from 55 percent to 75 percent in the workforce.

The highest concentration of women participating in the workforce reside in Multnomah County compared to Washington, Clark and Clackamas counties. The map reveals that neighborhoods in central Portland, particularly in inner Northeast and inner Southeast Portland, show the highest rates of women’s workforce participation. Areas further from central business districts, including outer East Portland, eastern Clackamas County, and parts of Clark County, show lower participation rates. Washington County shows mixed patterns, with some areas near Beaverton and Hillsboro showing relatively high participation rates, while more suburban and rural areas show lower rates. See Figure 1.

These geographic patterns reflect multiple factors that influence women’s workforce participation: availability of public transportation and proximity to jobs, access to childcare, concentrations of educational attainment, and the age and household composition of residents in different parts of the region.

Children & Workforce Participation

Beyond geography, workforce participation rates for women vary substantially by demographic factors, particularly the presence and age of children, educational attainment, and race and ethnicity.

The presence and age of children in the household represents one of the strongest factors associated with women’s workforce participation. In 2024 women with children made up 39 percent of the total women’s workforce. Of that 39 percent, women with young children (under age 6 years) made up 5 percent, women with older children (ages 6 to 17 years) made up 24 percent, and women with children both younger and older made up 10 percent.

Women with no children have consistently had higher workforce participation rates than women with children of any age. Women with children younger than 6 years face the lowest participation rates of all women, reflecting the intensive caregiving demands of early childhood as well as  the high cost and limited availability of infant/toddler care and preschool. These patterns underscore that caregiving responsibilities remain unequally distributed by gender, with women more likely to reduce or exit paid work during children’s early years. See Figure 2.

Despite these persistent challenges, there has been meaningful progress over the last decade. Workforce participation for women with children under 6 years old saw the greatest gains, with rates increasing by 10 percentage points from 2014 to 2024 (from 33,874 to 37,887 women). This is followed by women with children 6 to 17 years old, who saw an increase in workforce participation by 7 percentage points (from 95,510 to 102,165 women). Women with both children under 6 and between 6 to 17 years of age saw more modest gains, with participation rates increasing by 4 percentage points, while participation rates for women without children increased by 2 percentage points.

These increases may reflect several developments over the decade, including expanded childcare options, increased workplace flexibility, the sharp rise in remote and hybrid work during and following the COVID-19 pandemic, economic necessity as the cost of living rose, and shifts in household composition and family structure.

Educational Attainment & Workforce Participation

Educational attainment remains strongly associated with women’s workforce participation, with those holding graduate degrees showing the highest rates or participation over time. The level of educational attainment increases, so do workforce participation rates amongst women. Women with less than a high school degree have historically seen the lowest participation rates (just under 50 percent), whereas women with postsecondary education have higher rates (greater than 75 percent). See Figure 3.

In addition to having higher workforce participation rates, women with bachelor’s and graduate degrees have seen meaningful progress in participation rates over the last decade. Participation for women with bachelor’s degrees has increased by 6 percentage points and women with graduate degrees has increased by 5 percentage points from 2014 to 2024.

The Portland metro area has seen the greatest increase in workforce participation for women with at least a high school diploma (or equivalent) over the last 10 years, growing by 7 percentage points from 2014 to 2024. This suggests that mid-skill jobs and opportunities for workers with high school credentials may have improved during this period, or that women in this educational category faced changing household economic circumstances that increased their need or ability to participate in the workforce.

The greatest decrease in workforce participation by educational attainment was for women with Associates degrees, going from 84 percent in 2014 to 79 percent in 2024. Prior to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, participation rates were trending slightly upward, with a 1 percentage point increase in participation from 2014 to 2017. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted both labor markets and educational pathways simultaneously; community and technical college enrollment declined nationally during this period, potentially contributing to the reduced pipeline of Associates-degree holders entering or re-entering the workforce. At the statewide level, community college and technical programs have seen some recovery in terms of enrollment rates, with 90,961 students registered in 2023 – an increase of 4.3 percent that continues the upward trend in enrollment from 2022.

Race and Ethnicity & Workforce Participation

Race and ethnicity also play a significant role in shaping women’s workforce participation patterns. Women of color have consistently had lower workforce participation rates than white women across all three time periods examined. In 2024, white women showed a participation rate of approximately 84 percent, while women of color showed a participation rate of approximately 80 percent. See Figure 4.

However, between 2014 and 2024, rates of participation for women of color have increased more than that of white women, rising by 7 percentage points compared to 5 percentage points, respectively. This narrowing of the gap, while still leaving substantial disparities, indicates some progress in reducing barriers to workforce participation for women of color.

Understanding the Gender Wage Gap

While workforce participation helps get at the question of access to economic opportunity, the gender wage gap can tell us about the quality of that economic engagement (for those that are employed). The wage gap metric quantifies how much women earn compared to men, and helps us understand the level of parity in wages across different benchmarks.

Nationally in 2024, women earned 85 percent of men’s earnings, an increase from 81 percent in the prior year. Importantly, because there are so many different factors that influence the level of compensation an individual receives, there is no single cause of the wage gap. Quantifiable drivers, such as occupational sorting, age, and differences in years of  experience or hours available (often shaped by caregiving responsibilities) explain a large part of the gap, while an additional, less directly measurable portion is commonly attributed to various forms of direct discrimination. The relative influence of these factors varies across identities, geographies, and occupations, and the disparities are deeply compounded by race.

Researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research found that while differences in education and work experience used to explain much of the wage gap, today the main measurable cause is the gender differences in occupations and industries. The research analyzed the relationship between the gender wage gap and occupation, industry, work experience, race, region, unionization, and education between 1980 and 2010, and found that industry and occupation accounted for over 50 percent of the wage gap in 2010 (17.6% and 32.9%, respectively).

Other labor components that contributed to the gap were accounted for by work experience (14.1%), race (4.3%), region (0.3%), unionization (-1.3%) and education (-5.9%). See Figure 5. The negative percent associated with unionization and education represent a historical shift in the wage gap within these components. While the measurable factors above explain 62 percent of the wage difference, 38 percent remains “unexplained.” Researchers attribute this leftover chunk to factors that are harder to measure on a survey, such as outright employer discrimination, differences in negotiation approaches and outcomes, or steep wage penalties placed on workers who require flexible hours for family responsibilities.

Reductions in the Wage Gap

In addition to demographic factors, policy changes can also impact the gender wage gap, a primary one being updates to minimum wage laws. Research has shown that increases to minimum wages primarily reduce the earnings gap among younger workers and those in low-skilled jobs. This is because minimum wages create a wage floor, which contributes to the compressed gender wage gap for lower-wage workers.

The Oregon Legislature changed its methods for establishing a minimum wage in 2016. The threshold went from being a uniform statewide level, to an annual minimum wage increase for inflation that is specific to work location. The Portland metro area (on the Oregon side and within the urban growth boundary) is considered its own work location and therefore has separate minimum wage laws than the standard work locations (e.g. Benton, Clatsop, Columbia, Deschutes, Hood River counties) and non-urban work locations (e.g. Baker, Coos, Crook, Curry, Douglas, Gilliam, and Klamath counties). The Portland metro area received the following minimum wage increases over the years:

• In 2017, the minimum wage increased from $9.10 to 11.25 per hour.
• In 2019, the minimum wage increased to $12.50 per hour.
• In 2023, the minimum wage increased to $14.20 per hour.
• In 2024, the minimum wage increased to $14.70 per hour.

Women ages 16 to 24 have wages closest to parity with men in both 2017 and 2023, a pattern consistent with the wage-compressing effects of Oregon’s minimum wage increases among younger, lower-wage workers. See Figure 6. Because wages at the age extremes of the working population are shaped by factors such as school enrollment, part-time work, and phased retirement, rather than core labor market dynamics, the analysis in this section restricts the sample to civilian workers ages 25 to 54 and those working at least 35 hours a week, to provide a cleaner picture of structural wage disparities.

Wage Gap Differences by Race & Ethnicity

To measure the wage gap for women by race and ethnicity in the Portland metro, the total median wage for all men in the Portland metro is used as a comparison. From 2017 to 2023, almost all racial and ethnic groups of women saw increases in the amount earned per dollar earned by all men in the Portland Metro area. See Figure 7. Asian non-Hispanic women have the smallest wage gap in the Portland Metro area, earning $0.92 per each dollar earned by a man in 2023, followed by white women, who earned $0.88 per dollar earned by a man in 2023.

Black non-Hispanic women saw meaningful improvement, rising from $0.60 to $0.67 per dollar earned of all men from 2017 to 2023. Hispanic women however, while experiencing gains from $0.55 to $0.61 per dollar, continue to face the largest wage gap of any group examined.

Studies using U.S. data find that minimum wage increases tend to compress wage inequality at the bottom of the distribution and reduce wage gaps within racial groups, in part because people of color and women are overrepresented among low-wage workers who benefit most from higher wage floors. Put more simply, minimum wage increases have a greater positive effect on the wage gap for the lowest paid workers, who are much more likely to be women and/or people of color.

It is also worth noting that women identifying as other races, or two or more races represent the only group that saw a decrease in their earnings relative to men during this period.

Wage Gap Differences by Occupation & Race

Examining the specific occupations where women work and how compensation varies reveals an additional critical mechanism through which gender and racial wage disparities are produced and sustained. Occupational sorting, where women and men, and particularly women of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, are concentrated in different types of work, plays a significant role in creating and maintaining earnings inequality.

The wage consequences of these occupational patterns become clearer when examining average wages by occupation and race. Among the five highest-earning occupations for women, three have less than 50 percent women, and within those, women of color are even less represented. This indicates women are largely shut out of the occupations where wages are highest. See Figure 8.

At the other end of the distribution, women are heavily concentrated in office and administrative support occupations (67% women), yet carry a median wage of $49,924, nearly $11,000 below the Oregon median of $61,171. Although women do not make up a large share of the lower-earning occupations, the distribution of women of color is greater than white women at the lowest earning occupations: food prep and serving (22% women of color), and building maintenance (21% women of color). The result is a compounding disadvantage: women of color have greater shares than white women in the occupations that pay least, and are underrepresented in the ones that pay most.

The distribution of occupation selection and wages across race can further be explored, which compares median wage, the number and share of total women, and the share of non-white women across occupations. See Figure 9. The chart shows that in 2023, the occupations with the highest shares of women are healthcare support (82%), personal care and service (78%), and education instruction and library (68%) occupations; the total number of women within each of these occupations is 13,935, 5,368, and 22,782 respectively. The median wage for women across almost all of these occupations is below the statewide median of $61,171, with the exception of education occupations that have a median wage of $65,118. Women of color make up 45 percent of women in healthcare support occupations, 39 percent of women in personal care occupations, and 22 percent of education occupations.

Comparatively, the occupations with the highest counts of women are in office and administrative support (42,391), management (41,293), and business and financial operations (29,860): women make up 42 percent, 67 percent and 55 percent of these occupations, respectively. All three of these occupations are the largest occupation groups in the Portland metro area, with 99,099 people in management, 63,328 people in office and administrative support, and 54,406 people in business and financial operations. Median wages for women in management and business occupations are both higher than the Oregon median wage, $85,474 and $78,501 respectively. Within these occupations however, the share of women of color is less than half of the total number of women: roughly 30 percent to 70 percent in both business and management occupations.

This highlights a “double burden” of occupational inequality for women of color: they face wage penalties within most occupations where they work, and they’re systematically excluded from the few high-paying fields.

Beyond comparing average wages among women of different racial backgrounds, examining how women’s wages compare to men’s wages within occupational categories can reveal the extent of gender-based wage disparities across different types of work. Women’s median wages as a ratio of men’s median wages by occupation for women of color and white women in the Portland metro during 2023. See Figure 10. The patterns reveal considerable variation across occupations.

In 2023, women’s wages relative to men’s wages ranged from near parity in some occupations to substantial gaps in others. Several occupations show women earning between $0.80 and $0.90 per dollar earned by men, while a few occupations show ratios below $0.70 or above $0.90. These within-occupation wage gaps exist even after accounting for the type of work performed, highlighting that there are other labor market components beyond occupation that contribute to gender wage disparities.

These factors may include differences in specialization within broad occupational categories, years of experience, hours worked, negotiation approach and outcomes, and direct wage discrimination. The persistence of these gaps across diverse occupational fields indicates that achieving wage equity requires addressing not only occupational sorting but also the mechanisms that produce pay differences between women and men doing similar work.

Economic Stability & Wealth Accumulation

Wages are a critical component of securing short term and longer term economic security. In addition to wages however, long term financial stability also depends on the ability to accumulate assets, access retirement income, and maintain household stability over time. These dimensions of economic health are harder to measure with precision, much of the data on wealth and assets is described at the account level and often private or without enough demographic information to isolate gender-specific patterns.

Despite these limitations, available research points to meaningful and persistent gaps between women and men in retirement income, and overall household financial stability. Like wage gaps, these disproportionate trends are not isolated outcomes; they are the cumulative result of compounding disadvantages across the life course. The following sections investigate the gendered effects on retirement income, asset accumulation and household ownership cost-burdens, to better understand the labor markets impacting long term financial security.

Retirement Income Gender Gaps

Retirement security in the U.S. draws from multiple sources, including Social Security, employer-sponsored plans, and personal savings vehicles. Asset wealth such as home equity, investments, and continued employment also play an important role. But research has shown that women acquire less than men in all such categories. Women face different retirement security challenges than men, which stem from a lifetime of compounding disadvantages. Women face lower wages, more frequent career interruptions for (unpaid) caregiving, related reduced access to employer-sponsored retirement benefits, and the gendered impacts of ageism in the workplace.

These disadvantages widen gender gaps in retirement income and savings and contribute to women’s comparatively higher risk of poverty in older age. In Oregon today, for women to acquire the same lifetime earnings as men, they would have to work until the age of 67, whereas men would be able to retire at the age of 60. This difference in retirement age and rate of wealth accumulation coincides with the increasing national retirement income gap, which has been growing over the years (32.6% in 2022 from 28% in 2021).

In the Portland metro, women’s retirement income (including employer benefits, interest, dividends, social security income and supplemental security income) is much less than the men’s median retirement income. A common theme in earnings disparities between genders and race, where women make less than men on average, but women of color make the least in retirement income of all groups. See Figure 11.

Income Constraints & Asset Limitations Gender Gaps

The Federal Poverty Level (FPL) can provide a useful benchmark for identifying households in acute poverty, however it was developed in the 1960s based on assumptions about household expenses that no longer reflect the true cost of living in most American communities. As a result, it captures only a portion of households that are genuinely struggling to make ends meet. The ALICE framework, Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, was developed to address this gap by identifying households that earn above the poverty line but below what is actually required to afford basic necessities in their region. By calculating the actual cost of housing, childcare, food, transportation, healthcare, and other essentials in specific locations, the ALICE threshold provides a more realistic assessment of economic hardship and vulnerability.

Single female-headed households with children face a greater combined burden of poverty and ALICE status than single male-headed households or married households with children. See Figure 12. A substantial share of these households fall into the ALICE category, meaning they are working and earning above the poverty line but cannot afford basic household necessities. This reflects the compound challenges these households face, including sole responsibility for both earning income and providing care, lower average wages for women compared to men, limited availability and high cost of childcare, and fewer economic resources to draw on during emergencies or income disruptions.

Trends in Women’s Leadership

Women’s representation in leadership positions across the Portland Metro Area and Oregon shows a mixed picture of both progress and persistent gaps. While women have achieved near parity in state legislative representation and modest gains in business ownership, they remain significantly underrepresented in executive leadership roles at publicly traded companies. This section examines women’s leadership across three spheres: public sector elected office, private sector corporate leadership, and business ownership.

Leadership representation matters because leaders make decisions about policies, business practices, and resource allocation that shape opportunities for all workers and residents. Women in leadership positions often bring different perspectives to policy debates, serve as role models and mentors for other women, and are more likely to champion initiatives related to work-life balance, pay equity, and family support. Research on corporate and political leadership has documented that organizations and governments with women in decision-making roles often approach stakeholder engagement, workplace culture, and community investment differently than those without such representation.

Public Sector Leadership

Oregon has consistently exceeded national averages in electing women to state legislative positions. In 1991, women’s representation amongst state legislators crossed 25 percent, while the national share of women state legislators was 18 percent, 10 years later, the shares were 30 percent and 22 percent, respectively. While the rates of representation between Oregon and national are very similar, there are still a greater number of women state legislators in Oregon than nationally. In 2025 Oregon’s state legislators were 45 percent women, whereas nationally women only comprised 33 percent of state legislators. This level of representation places Oregon among the top states nationally for women’s representation in state legislatures. See Figure 13.

Private Sector Leadership

One broad measure of private sector leadership examines trends in women CEOs of publicly traded companies headquartered in Oregon and SW Washington. While not an exhaustive measure of private sector leadership positions or opportunities, as publicly available data around this topic is limited and the total number of publicly traded companies in Oregon and SW Washington is low, it does provide insight into the representation of women in some top executive roles within the regional private sector.

The number of women CEOs has increased substantially between 2015 and 2024, from 1 woman to 7 women, respectively. See Figure 14. Although there was only an increase of one woman between 2019 and 2024, rising from 6 to 7, the stability of this leadership is noteworthy. Five of the seven women serving as CEOs in 2024 continued in their roles from 2019, indicating that these organizations retained women in top leadership positions over multiple years.

This leadership retention is significant because women CEOs often face greater scrutiny and shorter tenures than their male counterparts, a phenomenon sometimes described as the “glass cliff” where women are appointed to leadership roles during times of organizational crisis or instability. When women remain in CEO positions over extended periods, they gain the opportunity to implement long-term strategic changes, shape organizational culture, and demonstrate sustained leadership effectiveness.

However, the minimal growth in the absolute number of women CEOs from 2019 to 2024, indicates that the pipeline of women advancing to top executive positions remains constrained. With women comprising nearly half the workforce and holding increasing shares of management positions, their substantial under-representation from CEO roles at publicly-traded companies could reflect ongoing barriers in corporate succession planning, board dynamics, work-life balance challenges at the executive level.

Another measure of private sector leadership, more specific to the Portland metro, examines business ownership patterns. The share of women-owned businesses across the Portland metro increased from 22 percent in 2017 to 25 percent in 2023. This increase of 3 percentage points indicates a trend of more women successfully starting and sustaining businesses during this time, though women remain less likely than men to own businesses overall. See Figure 15.

Women business owners often make different strategic choices and/or face different constraints than men regarding business growth and structure. Smaller sized firms, defined as those with fewer than 50 employees, have a greater share of women owners compared to firms with more than 50 employees. Among businesses with fewer than 50 employees, women own approximately one quarter of all firms. This concentration in smaller businesses may reflect several factors, such as challenges in accessing capital needed for expansion, or concentration of women-owned businesses in industries that scale differently than manufacturing or technology firms. The State of Oregon offers contracts and procurement opportunities for local businesses to gain access to capital, however of the 3.2 billion in contracts from 2017 to 2022, only 10.9 percent went to businesses owned by people of color and women – despite people of color and women business owners make up roughly 33.9 percent of the businesses available for state contracts and procurement. See Figure 16.

The patterns across public sector leadership, corporate executive roles, and business ownership reveal that women have made significant gains in some leadership areas while barriers persist in others. The near parity achieved in state legislative representation demonstrates that with sustained effort, structural changes, and cultural shifts, gender balance in leadership is achievable. It also implies a demonstrated comfortability from the electorate with women in leadership positions.

The slower progress in corporate leadership in recent years and the concentration of women business owners in smaller firms indicate that private sector leadership advancement faces different and perhaps more resistant barriers. Understanding these varied patterns helps identify where interventions might have the greatest impact in advancing women’s leadership representation across all sectors of the regional economy.

Conclusion

The data presented in this report tell a story of meaningful but incomplete progress. Women in the Portland Metro area have made genuine gains over the past decade: workforce participation is up, wage gaps have narrowed for most racial and ethnic groups, business ownership has grown, and Oregon’s record on electing women to public office stands among the strongest in the nation.

These are important gains that deserve to be celebrated. However, the data also show  persistent structural barriers that substantially limit economic access and well-being. Women with children, particularly those with children under six, continue to face the greatest constraints on workforce participation of all other women. Women of color face lower participation rates, larger wage gaps, and greater concentration in lower-wage occupations than white women. Single female-headed households with children carry a disproportionate share of economic precarity, facing higher combined rates of poverty and ALICE status than their male-headed counterparts.

In the private sector, women-owned businesses are growing in number but remain concentrated in smaller firms, and women continue to hold a fraction of CEO roles at publicly traded Oregon companies. That being said, Oregon’s near parity in state legislative representation is noteworthy: the state has demonstrated that sustained progress toward gender balance in leadership is achievable when structural conditions and cultural expectations shift.

In a regional economy grappling with slow job growth and rising costs, the structural underutilization of women’s labor and leadership capacity represents a constraint on the region’s productivity and resilience. Whether that progress extends to all women, across race, household type, and occupation, will be a defining measure of the region’s economic resilience in the years ahead.

Study Area Definition, Data Limitations, and Equity Considerations

For purposes of this study, the Portland Metro Area encompasses Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties in Oregon, and Clark county in Washington. This four-county region represents a core metropolitan area where labor markets, housing markets, and economic opportunities are deeply interconnected.

The analysis utilizes U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) as the geographic building blocks for estimates. While PUMA boundaries were revised between the 2010 and 2020 Census definitions, the boundaries for these four counties align consistently across both time periods. This geographic stability allows for reliable trend analysis without the need to adjust for boundary changes or apply additional caveats when comparing data over time.

Census PUMS data provides information on sex (Female/Male), not gender identity. Throughout this report, we use “women” and “men” for readability, while acknowledging that sex and gender are distinct concepts and that not all individuals identify with the gender associated with sex assigned at birth.

Leadership data at the metropolitan and county levels is limited. To account for this, we use state-level trends in the public and private sector to evaluate broad trends in women’s leadership.