Smaller percentage of women working in Clark County than in Multnomah County

A smaller percentage of women are working in Clark County than across the Columbia River in Multnomah County, Ore.

That’s according to an ECOnorthwest study recently released by the Portland Metro Chamber. U.S. Census Bureau data seems to back that up, at least in part. The latest American Community Survey numbers estimated 81.2 percent of women worked in Multnomah County in 2024, compared with 75.5 percent of women in Clark County.

The percentage of women working in Clark County dropped depending on whether they had young children, the data showed.

The ECOnorthwest study showed only a 2 percent increase in workforce participation for women between 2014 and 2024.

Nothing in the report was particularly new to Miriam Halliday, CEO at Workforce Southwest Washington, the region’s workforce development board. Still, she said, there’s a benefit in drawing attention to how little has changed.

Halliday suspects Multnomah County’s Preschool for All program may have something to do with why that county sees so many more women working than Clark County.

“We can learn from them in a lot of ways and see how it goes,” Halliday said. “I would imagine it will continue to increase women’s participation in the labor force.”

Multnomah County voters approved the program in 2020. It currently funds preschool for nearly 4,000 children.

Workforce Southwest Washington issued a report in 2021 that made a business-related case for employers to provide child care.

Women have long faced challenges in the workforce, often related to their roles in their family lives.

“Just in terms of how we’re built, we tend to be caregivers,” said Erica Torres, system vice president of mission integration at Vancouver-based PeaceHealth.

That may be caring for children or for an aging parent, she said.

PeaceHealth, a nonprofit health care system founded by women with a workforce that’s primarily women, strives to pay attention to the challenges women face in the workforce.

One example is working to create thoughtful and comfortable places for women to nurse and pump, Torres said.

If the organization doesn’t pay attention, Torres said it could easily slide into the male-dominated cultural norms around the country.

PeaceHealth aims for women to make up close to 80 percent of its leadership team, roughly the same percentage of women in its workforce. The organization announced a new female CEO last summer.

ECOnorthwest’s study also found a wage gap persists for women in all age groups compared to their male counterparts. The gap was even greater for Hispanic and Black women. White women made 88 cents in 2023 for every dollar earned by men in the Portland metro area. Asian women made 92 cents, Black women made 67 cents and Hispanic women made 61 cents.

Halliday said there are still structural conditions in both the private and public sectors leading to fewer women in leadership roles. Clark County currently has one female CEO leading a locally based publicly traded company, Nicole Sherman at Riverview Bank. And women in those leadership positions tend to make less than their male counterparts.

The disparities are greater, she added, when you break out those statistics by race.

“Even though we have a lot of really great people trying to push, push, push, push, there’s still a lot of inequities that exist,” Halliday said.