Female employment, by occupation

Nearly one in three women work in sales and service occupations

• Fifty-six percent of women work in two occupation categories. Almost 2.2 million women were employed in sales and service occupations in 2005, accounting for 28.7% of all working women over the age of 15 years. About one-third of these women worked as retail sales people, sales clerks, cashiers or retail supervisors. An additional 2.1 million women (27.4%) had jobs in business, finance and administrative occupations. A smaller but still significant number of women also worked in occupations related to social science, education, government service and religion (919,000 or 12.1% of women) and there were also 780,000 (10.3%) employed in health occupations.
• However, relatively few women were found in primary industry occupations (only 114,000 in farming, forestry, mining or fishing), or in trades, transport and equipment operation (157,000) in 2005.
• From 1996 to 2005, the largest employment increase among women was in sales and service occupations followed by business, finance and administration. There were also significant gains in occupations in social science, education, government service and religion.

Enlarge chart