HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Connecticut outpaces other states and the federal government when it comes to employing women in the highest levels of state government, an analysis released Wednesday shows.
The report from the Governor’s Council on Women and Girls found women hold nearly 52% of executive branch jobs considered “officials and administrators,” compared to 30% of the highest senior civil-service positions in the federal government. But it also warned Connecticut faces some of the “same challenging trends” found elsewhere, including minority women being segregated in female-dominated occupations and agencies.
“Connecticut, by comparison to other states and the federal workforce, appears more equitable across gender and racial-ethnic categories from a broad view,” according to the report. “That said, the state has more work to do in addressing some of the distressing representation problems that are consistent with problems that exist across the country.”
Female state workers in Connecticut are “disproportionately segregated to ’caring’ occupations” in agencies that oversee health, welfare, or education services for the state’s most vulnerable populations, the report found. In contrast, men are more likely to be overrepresented in regulatory agencies, particularly those involving law enforcement, as well as agencies focusing on science, technology, engineering and math.
Women, for example, make up nearly 79% of the workforce at Connecticut’s Department of Rehabilitation Services, an agency that serves people with disabilities. At the Connecticut Military Department, which includes the state’s national guard units, the workforce is slightly more than 16% female.
“When you drill down into the population by agency, you find some of the challenges that you see elsewhere, where you see women and people of color are concentrated in certain agencies, certain positions, certain occupation,” said Democratic State Comptroller Kevin Lembo, whose staff worked on the report. While women overall in Connecticut state government are earning slightly more than male state workers, approximately $1,000 annually, he noted those numbers tend to fluctuate when you look at women’s compensation in historically male-dominated fields.
The analysis also showed racial disparities still exist in Connecticut state government.
Both minority men and women earn less than white men and women working in executive branch agencies. The average minority male earns approximately $10,000 less than the average white male and female, while the average minority female earns almost $8,000 less than the average white female.
Also, the report found big racial differences by state agency. For example, there’s a high concentration of white men working for the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, which include the Connecticut State Police, while there’s a high concentration of minority men working in the Department of Correction, the state’s prison system.
Democratic Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, who co-chairs the council on women and girls, said all state agencies and branches of government should conduct their own reviews, using this report as a blueprint. Given a projected wave of state retirements in the coming years, she said state agencies have an opportunity to recruit a more diverse workforce.
“Each department will now be armed with information and the governor and I will be encouraging all these agencies to start taking steps to address issues within their department,” she said.
The Connecticut State Police could be one state agency most severely affected by large numbers of veteran state workers retiring in the coming years. A transition memo provided to Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont when he first took office showed as many as 401 of 970 state troopers are potentially eligible to retire by 2023. Meanwhile, the Department of Public Health has predicted about 40% of its workers could be eligible to retire in the next two years.
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