Women outnumber men in Jefferson City's labor force by 14 percent, but earn only about 84 percent of what men earn from their jobs, according to a nationwide study published by finance website NerdWallet.
Jefferson City was ranked as the best small city for women in the workforce, based on criteria including women's median earnings, monthly rent to indicate cost of living, difference in workforce participation between men and women and the overall employment rate.
Despite the local wage gap, Misouri's capital city still fared better than the national average, based on figures from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and published online at NerdWallet.
Nationally, women earn about 78 percent of their male counterparts' salaries, and the gap is even greater for minorities. Black women make 64 percent of what white men earn, and Hispanic and Latina women earn 53 percent of white men's salaries, according to the AAUW.
Jefferson City's top ranking isn't actually all that surprising, though, said NerdWallet analyst Courtney Miller.
"We did notice some trends in the cities that came up highly, (and those) cities had large health care sectors as well as government jobs," said Miller, who analyzed the data in the study. Health care and government jobs tended to have a much smaller pay gap than in other industries.
The findings also support a national trend; communities in the Midwest generally have a smaller wage gap between genders than cities on either coast.
There's no definitive reason for this finding, Miller said, although there are several possibilities.
"In the study, we used cost of living. And so that helps the Midwest do better in this kind of study, because it is more affordable," Miller said.
The variation in major industries between the Midwest and the coasts may also play a role.
The east and west coasts have more jobs in high-paying industries such as finance that are dominated by men. In contrast, women gravitate to more stable jobs such as nursing and teaching, said Peter Mueser, a professor in labor economics at the University of Missouri. This way, women can more easily take a break from the labor force to care for children, he said.
In the NerdWallet rankings, Miller also considered unemployment and monthly rent to gauge the general economic wealth in the city. Jefferson City's unemployment rate was 5.7 percent in 2013, according to U.S. Census data used by the study. This is a full percentage point beneath the national average, which hovered at 6.7 percent by the end of that year.
"I added unemployment in, just as a general proxy of the economy," Miller said. "We didn't want to rank cities highly that were doing poorly in general."
But Mueser also said the rankings should be viewed with a dose of skepticism.
From 2000-13, Jefferson City's annual population growth rate increased by 0.71 percent, according to U.S. Census data. Although the population grew, it lagged behind the national population growth rate, which was 0.98 percent per year.
If Jefferson City has such high workforce rankings, then "why aren't people moving there in great numbers?" Mueser asked.
Top 5 small cities for working women
Jefferson City
Morgantown, West Virginia
Fitchburg, Wisconsin
Helena, Montana
Huntsville, Texas
Source: NerdWallet