Nevada No. 2 in nation in ratio of males

Monday, Sept. 10, 2001 | 10:49 a.m.

Females remain in the majority nationwide, but Nevada continues to buck the trend.

Nevada trailed only Alaska among states with the highest percentage of men to women last year, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released today. The same was true in 1990.

The 2000 Census reported 1,018,051 men and 980,206 women in Nevada, producing a male-female ratio of 103.9. The ratio was calculated by dividing the number of men by the number of women and multiplying the result by 100.

Renee Spraggins, co-author of the report, said Nevada's gaming and mining industries may help explain the state's ranking.

"It could be because of the job opportunities," Spraggins said.

State demographer Jeff Hardcastle agreed, adding that Nevada's construction industry is dominated by men.

Seven states, all in the West, had more men than women last year. Alaska led the way with a male-female ratio of 107, followed by Nevada, Colorado (101.4), Wyoming (101.2), Hawaii (101), Idaho (100.5) and Utah (100.4). The national average was 96.3. Rhode Island, at 92.5, had the nation's lowest ratio.

Hardcastle said there are historic reasons why certain Western states have had more men than women.

"They started out as resource extraction states," he said. "Because of mining, timber and fishing, they would be more male dominated."

The Census report also singled out the Paradise Township, near the Strip, as having the nation's third highest male-female ratio -- 109.1 -- among designated Census areas that had at least 100,000 people. Paradise, with 97,081 men and 88,989 women, is the area bordered by Desert Inn Road, Decatur Boulevard and Nellis Boulevard and extends south of Interstate 215.

The Census area with the nation's highest male-female ratio was Salinas, Calif., at 113.7.

In Nevada and the other four states with the highest percent increase in population -- Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Idaho -- the male population grew faster than the female population between 1990 and 2000. Nevada's male-female ratio was 103.7 in 1990, two-tenths of a percent below last year's ratio.

Nevada's male population grew 66.4 percent from 1990 to 2000, while its female population rose 66.1 percent. Nevada, along with Alaska and Hawaii, were the only states last year where men outnumbered women in each county.

Overall, there were about 5.3 million more women than men nationwide, and women made up the majority in 73 percent of the nation's counties.