L.A. Narrows Pay Gap

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Los Angeles turns in a better than respectable showing in terms of the gender pay gap. Female workers nationwide make about 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts, but women here earn about 90 cents on the buck for what a man makes in a comparable job.

That places Los Angeles as the 12th best for women out of more than 900 cities ranked in a study released this month by San Francisco company NerdWallet Inc., which runs a financial services information website.

NerdWallet analyst Divya Raghavan said the L.A. area might have done better in the study due to the nature of the dominant industries here, including entertainment and engineering. But it’s not all good news.

“It could be a combination of low-paying jobs in the entertainment industry and equal-paying engineering jobs,” she said.

Many of the top-paying jobs are still not going to women, and that’s an issue across the country, she said. However, female executive role models such as Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer at Facebook Inc. in Menlo Park, are beginning to change that.

“Things are still unequal, but they’re clearly getting better,” said Raghavan. “We need to get to the point where the success of Sheryl Sandberg is something we don’t even blink an eye at.”

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