Women rule the household finances in 77002

National Women’s History Month provides an excellent opportunity to consider the role of women in society, both globally and on a local scale. With that in mind, we’re digging through data to determine which parts of Houston are home to female breadwinners.

Despite all the progress made in women’s rights over the past century, data shows that there are still only a few pockets of town where women are the financial heads of their households.

Here in Houston, you’re more likely to find a woman stay at home while her husband goes to the work than in most parts of the country. Across the city, 33.5 percent of households include a husband in the labor force and a wife absent from it, compared with a national rate of 22 percent. It’s very ’50ssitcom friendly.

But there are a few ZIP codes that buck this trend. Kind of.

We checked Census data to determine which ZIP codes have the highest share of households with working women and men of leisure. In 77016, 13.3 percent of households fit this mold. At first, it sounds very progressive. But if you keep examining the details in this east Houston neighborhood, you’ll see 28 percent of families here have a

husband in the labor force with a wife who isn’t. So even though this area has the most women breadwinners, they’re still only half as common as male breadwinners.

In fact, there is only one ZIP code in Houston where there are more female breadwinners than male breadwinners: Downtown’s 77002. Here, 12.8 percent of families are headed by female workers with a husband who doesn’t work, while 12.5 households have the opposite arrangement.

And even then, women earners here take home less than their male counterparts: Women who live in 77002 and work full time make a median income of $51,694, while full-time male workers here earn $55,815. That’s a gap of about 8 percent. On average, for every $1 a man earns in 77002, a neighboring woman earns $0.92. But on the bright side, it’s way smaller than the national wage gap, which sees women earning $0.80 for every man’s dollar.