Sustainability Infrastructure

Here are the best and worst cities for women

Columbia, Md., South Burlington, Vt and Irvine, Calif., are the best cities for women, a new WalletHub survey found.

by Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech | Sep. 27, 2023

Story at a glance

  • A new WalletHub survey found that Columbia, Md., South Burlington, Vt., and Irvine, Calif., are the best cities for women. 
  • WalletHub looked at how women fared economically, socially and health-wise in 182 cities in the U.S. to come up with its ranking.  
  • It found that the worst cities for women include New Orleans and Mobile, Ala.

Columbia, Md., is the best place in the country for a woman to thrive, according to a recently released WalletHub survey.  

Researchers at the personal finance website compared 182 cities — including the nation’s 150 most populated cities — across two categories: women’s economic and social well-being and women’s health care and safety.  

WalletHub researchers then examined those two categories via 15 standard of living indicators for women — like the median earnings and unemployment rate for women — to determine their ranking.  

“Since the gender pay gap tends to widen with age, putting down roots in a city with better earnings potential can set a woman up for more financial success in the future,” the survey states.  

“Some locations are better poised to handle women’s health and safety concerns as well, such as access to abortion and other women’s health services.”  

At the top of the list, Columbia scored relatively highly for both women’s economic and social well-being and women’s health care and safety — at 6 and 14, respectively — though it didn’t earn the highest score in either category. It did boast the highest median earnings for female workers of all 182 cities when adjusted for cost of living, with women in Columbia earning three times more than those in Santa Ana, Calif., where wages were lowest, WalletHub found.

Charleston, S.C., garnered the highest ranking for women’s economic and social well-being, but scored low for health care and safety. Meanwhile, Yonkers, N.Y., which topped the latter category, earned only a middling score for the former.

Here are the best cities for women, according to WalletHub: 

  1. Columbia, Md. 
  1. South Burlington, Vt 
  1. Irvine, Calif. 
  1. Fremont, Calif. 
  1. Santa Clarita, Calif. 
  1. Seattle, Wash. 
  1. Gilbert, Ariz. 
  1. Overland Park, Kan. 
  1. Yonkers, N.Y. 
  1. Pearl City, Hawaii. 

Here are the worst cities for women:  

  1. Jackson, Miss. 
  1. Gulfport, Miss. 
  1. Brownsville, Texas 
  1. Huntington, W.Va. 
  1. Shreveport, La 
  1. Augusta, Ga 
  1. Charleston, W.Va. 
  1. Laredo, Texas. 
  1. Mobile, Ala. 
  1. New Orleans, La. 

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