An Analysis of the Female-Lawyer Ratio in the United States : Observing Changes in the Pace of Integration and Wage Discrimination of Women Lawyers

Abstract

Women have faced many barriers to entering the legal profession which has in turn, affected the pace at which women have integrated into law. The first part of this study focuses on the pace of integration, testing the effects of state factors on the female-lawyer ratio (FLR) using regression analysis. The second part of the study seeks to verify the existence of a wage gap between men and women lawyers by using a combination of regression analysis and the Oaxaca-Blinder breakdown. Ultimately, I find that states’ average annual hourly wages of lawyers had a small and positive, statistically significant impact on the FLR, while total employment of lawyers and increases in ABA accredited schools had no statistically significant effect. When looking specifically at ABA schools that were private (vs public), and nonprofit (vs for-profit), there was positive correlation with the FLR, but only at the 10% level of significance. Additionally, states with a “low” number of male lawyers had a statistically significant, positive correlation with the FLR which grew over time. This could be explained by the increased opportunity for women to find work in legal services at the turn of the 20th century. Secondly, I found that the wage gap between men and women lawyers actually exists, and that this disparity could have been as high as -$14,052 from 1970-2000 and -$29,257 from 2009-2018, displaying an increasing trend over time. Although this makes a strong argument for the presence of wage discrimination, my results are limited in that unobserved variables may also be contributing to the wage difference.