If you are female, in your twenties, in a job and living in Dallas, Texas, you have never had it so good.

According to a US demographic report, for the first time women between the ages of 21 and 30, from all educational backgrounds, earned 20 per cent more than their male counterparts in full-time work in Dallas.

The urban trend – detected by Andrew Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College in New York – suggests that women within this age group have larger salaries than men in a number of US cities, including New York, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis.

In Dallas, women within this bracket earned an average annual wage of $25,467 (£12,626).

In New York City, those women within the same category took home 17 per cent more than men of the same age.

Nationwide, however, the average pay for full-time working women within that age group was far less – they took home 89 per cent of the average pay of their male counterparts.

Speaking to The Times, Professor Beveridge said: “Women are doing so much better. So many women are now in higher-status jobs.

“The difference is especially pronounced among Latin American and black women, who are far better educated than their male counterparts. Their success is very much consistent with civil rights law which was voted in in 1968.

“It’s taken a while, but women have gained a great deal over the last 40 years.”

Professor Beveridge examined women’s pay using statistics from the US Census Bureau compiled for 2005 for employees working at least 35 hours a week for 40 or more weeks a year.

It is thought that the number of younger women who are earning more in cities is connected with the increasing number of women graduating from universities who are attracted to the kind of high-status jobs available in urban areas.

In 2005, 53 per cent of women in their twenties working full-time in New York were university graduates, compared with 38 per cent of men in the same bracket.

Professor Beveridge explained: “The traditional trend used to be that women did not work in higher-status jobs, full stop. That trend is over.”

He pointed out that the increased earning power is a relatively new departure. “Women in their twenties ten years ago were not doing as well as men,” he said.

Professor Beveridge attributed most of the earnings trend to women delaying having children and once they do, more of them returning to full-time work sooner. He said: “Take a look at birth rates in Europe. In the US, women are not producing the 2.12 children needed to replace the population. The financial incentive to have a child is exactly what?”

Changing figures

Wages for New York workers in their twenties:

Men Women

1970 $39,641 $32,192
1980 $32,293 $29,603
1990 $36,225 $34,650
2000 $35,168 $35,168
2005 $30,560 $35,653

Men and women in their twenties in New York from all educational backgrounds still earn in real terms (ie adjusted for inflation) less than their counterparts did in 1970

Wages for American workers in their twenties:

Men Women

1970 $37,513 $25,275
1980 $34,983 $24,681
1990 $31,500 $25,586
2000 $30,479 $26,962
2005 $28,523 $25,467

Source: Analysis of Integrated Public Micro-Data Census Samples 1970-2005

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