AUGUSTA – If you are looking for a female roofer, petroleum engineer or mason in Maine, don’t bother. There are no women in those occupational categories, according to census figures, and the same is true in 27 other occupations.

“It takes about a 30 percent level of penetration into a profession or occupation to get a critical mass that opens up a field to women,” said Sharon Barker, director of the Women’s Resource Center at the University of Maine, in response to the numbers. “We have made progress in Maine, but we have a very long way to go.”

The census data reveal there are a total of 225 job categories in which women make up less than 30 percent of the workers. By contrast there are only 88 job categories in which men make up less than 30 percent of the workers.

There are no men in only three occupations, according to the census data that record occupation based on full-time work. There are 472 job categories in the census.

“The occupations are national categories, and you would not expect a lot of people working in some of them [in Maine], either men or women,” said Laura Fortman, Maine Labor commissioner. “But these numbers show that we do have our work cut out for us. This is not an issue whose time has come and passed.”

Fortman said her agency will dedicate a person full time to developing efforts to overcome gender inequities. She said while the major task will be to encourage women to enter non-traditional occupations, there will also be outreach efforts for men.

“People need to overcome stereotypes – of all kinds,” she said.

Barker said in the 30 years she has been watching the issue, there has been progress. She said there have been a lot of “firsts” for women in the professions and in other job categories, but those gains overshadow the very slow growth in most areas.

“I think you need to look for change over a decade at a time,” she said. “[Progress] has been that slow.”

John Hanson, director of the Bureau of Labor Education at the University of Maine, agreed. He said a study done by the bureau in Maine last year looked at pay equity and found women have narrowed the gap only slightly over the five years from 1997 to 2001.

In 1997 the median weekly wage for men – the wage at which half the men made more and half made less – was $521. That same year the median weekly wage for women was $397. By 2001, the median wage had increased to $617 for men and $490 for women. Women went from making 76.2 percent of a man’s median wage to 79.4 percent.

Hanson added that the pay gap has narrowed mostly because the rate of increase in salaries for men has been slowed by a loss of high paying industrial jobs.

“Women have not gained on men; it is men who have lost ground,” he said. “Our traditional industries that have been historically occupied mostly by men are the very industries we are losing. They tended to be the highest paying jobs, like the paper industry.”

“Every indicator is that [the loss of manufacturing jobs] is going to continue to get worse as the economy changes more and more into a service sector economy, and there is not a whole lot of basis there for optimism,” Hanson said. “We need to build a strong economy, and we can’t do that selling pizzas to each other.”

Gov. John Baldacci said he is committed to ending the gender gap, particularly the pay inequity women face in many jobs. But the issue is complex, he said, and will not be quickly resolved.

Baldacci said his administration is showing the way with women holding key positions such as his chief of staff and the commissioners of Finance, Education, Labor and Environmental Protection.

“I am proud of what we have done, but we need to do a lot more,” he said, “and the issue is far more than state government.”

Barker agreed. She said it will take time to change the ingrained attitudes about what is a man’s job and what is a woman’s job. She said schools need to encourage girls and boys to look at non-traditional occupations, as do parents.

Baldacci said some progress is being made.

“When I was up in Millinocket for the start up of the paper machine,” the governor said, “I had a former worker come up to me and tell me he was glad the machine was running again, but he does not plan to go back to the mill. He was just accepted at nursing school.”