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Renata Nunes smiles as she walks out of a huddle with the other competitors ahead of the OptiWize Women\u2019s Bull Riding Challenge at The Next Gambler, an event hosted by the Taylor Rodeo Association and the Austin Gamblers, Austin\u2019s PBR Teams League at the Wilco Events Center, June 27, 2026. The event marked the official partnership launch between Premier Women\u2019s Rodeo and the Gamblers to create more opportunities for women in professional bull riding.<\/p>\n
Sara Diggins\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Texas has some of the widest gaps between men and women in the country, particularly in education and health, according to a new study that ranked the state third worst nationwide for women\u2019s equality.<\/p>\n
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WalletHub ranked <\/a>Texas 48th among the 50 states in its annual study released Monday, ahead of only Oklahoma and Utah. The state scored 40.94 out of 100, compared with 77.74 for top-ranked Hawaii.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n How Texas compares with the rest of the country<\/p>\n Women make up 50.9% of the U.S. population but only about a third of state lawmakers and 35% of directors on S&P 500 corporate boards.<\/p>\n In Texas, women make up 50.6% of the population and 61 of the Legislature\u2019s 181 members, or 33.7% \u2014 roughly in line with the national share. The gap is wider in the state\u2019s congressional delegation: Women hold seven of Texas\u2019 38 U.S. House seats, or 18.4%, and neither of its two U.S. Senate seats.<\/p>\n How they\u00a0measured women\u2019s equality<\/p>\n WalletHub compared states across 17 measures, looking at differences between men and women in areas including earnings, unemployment, executive positions, entrepreneurship, advanced degrees, math scores, access to affordable doctor visits and political representation. When women outperformed men,\u00a0WalletHub counted the state as having equality on that measure rather than giving it extra credit.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Where Texas has the widest gender gaps<\/p>\n Texas\u2019 weakest showing came in education and health, where it ranked 49th.<\/p>\n “The U.S. has considerable and serious problems with unequal access, maternal mortality, reproductive health care, and racial bias in the practice of medicine,” Marybeth Gasman, executive director of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute for Leadership, Equity & Justice and\u00a0professor at Rutgers University, said. “Black women, in particular, face much higher maternal mortality rates \u2013 in 2024, for example, it was three times that of white women.”<\/p>\n The state ranked 37th for workplace equality and 39th for political empowerment.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n WalletHub ranked Texas 34th for the earnings gap, 36th for the disparity in executive positions and 31st for differences in hours worked. Texas performed comparatively better in entrepreneurship, ranking 19th for the gap between male and female entrepreneurship rates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Thousands attended the Women’s March on Austin Saturday afternoon, January 21, 2017, joining other movements across the country to stands up for women’s rights.<\/p>\n Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n Gasman,\u00a0pointed to pay transparency, regular pay-equity audits, paid family leave and affordable child care<\/a> as policies that can help shrink workplace gaps.<\/p>\n \u201cWomen cannot challenge pay inequities if salaries are not transparent, and research shows that when transparency policies are in place, gender pay gaps are smaller,\u201d\u00a0Gasman said, adding that research has found smaller gender pay gaps where transparency policies are in place.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The study gave equal weight to workplace conditions and education and health, with each accounting for 40% of a state\u2019s score. Political representation made up the remaining 20%.<\/p>\n How Texas policies overlap with the gaps<\/p>\n WalletHub did not examine the causes of the disparities it found, but some of the measures it used overlap with policy choices made by Texas. Its education and health category, for example, measures only gender differences in advanced degrees, math scores and the share of adults who could not afford a doctor visit \u2014 not abortion access or maternal mortality<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dr. Cara Buskmiller, a maternal fetal medicine physician at Texas Children’s Hospital in Austin, followed Amanda Senf and Nikkia since January and helped deliver a successful outcome.<\/p>\n Aaron E. Martinez, Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n One-third of WalletHub’s education and health score is based on the difference between men and women who said they could not afford a doctor’s visit. Texas is one of the states that has not expanded Medicaid<\/a> under the Affordable Care Act, which extended eligibility to nearly all low-income adults in states that adopted it.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Research suggests that expansion can affect gender disparities in access to care, not just overall insurance rates. A study published in 2026 found that Medicaid expansion improved access to primary care and reduced some gender and racial disparities in obtaining appointments.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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