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Best-Paying Careers for Women

Salary data from PayScale.com.

Three seem to be three easily identifiable stages within modern women’s entrance into (and overtaking of) the world job market. First, women were to nurse and teach – not an absolute victory, because many men were not interested in working such jobs, but a victory nonetheless. Next, women were allowed to work in pretty much any career men worked in, except for lower pay, fewer benefits, and less job stability.

But now, there are female astronauts, business executives, lawyers, doctors, and politicians – who not only work in these fields, but are compensated for their hard work fairly. Which fields are most lucrative, and why (besides a fat paycheck) should women consider them? Career experts Susan Wilson Solovic , Dr. Laurence Shatkin and Dr. Warren Farrell weigh in on the best-paying careers for women:

Careers in Medicine

Median salary for female M.D.s: $135,725
Besides money, why consider this career? If raising a family is part of your plan, there’s great potential for flexibility.

Solovic, the CEO of SBTV.com in St. Louis, suggests areas like internal medicine, anesthesiology and dermatology as excellent fields for women who also plan to raise families. “Those medical areas are not quite as taxing and demanding as some of the others,” she explains. “For example, if you are a cardiac surgeon you could get called in the middle of the night and be doing surgery for six hours. It’s more difficult to manage these calls if you are also a caretaker in your family.”

Individuals reporting: 525,155 (Payscale.com)

Another possibility is concierge medicine, where doctors charge a yearly fee from a set number of patients while providing enhanced care. “This is good because it’s flexible, you can manage your schedule a little bit better,” Solovic notes. “One woman doctor I know who is a concierge doctor-she limits her practice now to 200 patients a year because she has small children.”

Careers in Information technology

Median salary for female IT consultants: $70,492
Besides money, why consider this career? IT jobs are plentiful and increasingly friendly to women.

“There’s a lot of opportunity in IT for women, either starting their own businesses or working for places, like Google or Yahoo, that are innovative,” Solovic says, noting an abundance of IT jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ employment projections for 2006-2016, “demand for computer-related occupations” will rise in nearly all industries as organizations adopt more complex technologies.

Individuals reporting: 524,845 (Payscale.com)

“Technology is still dominated by men, but it’s becoming more friendly to women,” says Shatkin, a career information expert. “More and more of it is high-tech, where it doesn’t have the work conditions that are strenuous, difficult, mechanical. That’s proved very attractive [to women].”