Dive Brief:

• The pay gap between women and men who work in construction is narrower than the national average across industries, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released this week.

• Women who work in construction earn about 83 cents for every dollar their male colleagues take home, compared with 79 cents industry-wide, according to the 2013 American Community Survey, the most recent data available.

• The average annual pay for women in the construction and extraction fields, which the report combined, was $33,236 in 2013, compared with $40,003 for men. Approximately 119,131 women are employed in construction- and extraction-related fields, compared with 4.8 million men, according to the report.

Dive Insight:

 A separate report last week from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, which combined the construction and mining fields, offered a more optimistic look at the salary gap. The group’s “Employment and Earnings” report estimated that women in those fields earn 95.2% on the dollar when compared to their male co-workers, the narrowest gap among industries.