The pay gap between male and female professionals in the Pittsburgh area far exceeds the national average across most industries and occupations, according to a new study.

This disparity can be attributed to a sluggish economy, stagnant population growth and a legacy of heavy industry, argued study co-authors Chris Briem and Sabina Deitrick of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Social and Urban Research.

"The emergence of women into the regional job market was among the most major and important changes to the regional economy following the loss of heavy industry," said Mr. Briem. "The market is now open to the other half of the population, but changing the industrial structure and culture has not come easily to Pittsburgh. Only in the last decade has the physical presence of women in the labor force caught up to the nation. Now we need to play catch-up on pay equity."

Women make up 48 percent of the Pittsburgh area work force, yet female managers earned just 58.3 percent of local men and 89.5 percent of what women around the country made, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. Women in management positions at local nonprofits fared only slightly better, earning 64.3 percent of their male counterparts.

Local men, meanwhile, outearned their counterparts around the country.

More education, as it turns out, did not narrow this gender gap. Women without a high school degree earned 75 percent of what men made in 2000, while women with a graduate degree earned 71 percent of graduate-level men.

The full report is available at www.ucsur.pitt.edu/publications.htm.

The hope among gender-pay activists is that this report, as with others before it, will lead to a changed mind-set locally.

"In the past we have heard that our community leaders are focused on increasing economic development and our regional work force, yet their work on these areas historically was disconnected from issues of pay disparity," said Heather Arnet, executive director of the Women and Girls Foundation. "These traditional tactics have prevented our region's economic revitalization from occuring by decreasing our region's ability to compete for the best talent available."

One notable exception to the local pay disparity is the female farmer, who in southwestern Pennsylvania earned substantially more than female farmers nationally and slightly more than local male farmers. Also, the pay gap between men and women is smaller in the public sector than it is among for-profit companies and nonprofits.

But women remain underrepresented in many jobs and industries in southwestern Pennsylvania that are more segregated by gender than most of the top 100 U.S. metro areas, according to the study. San Francisco was the most integrated, while Pittsburgh was 71st.