After years of earning less than their male counterparts, some American women are catching up to and even overtaking men in terms of how much they earn – but only some of them, a study shows.

They are single women in their 20s without children, who live in large cities and work full-time, according to a report by Reach Advisers, a New York-based strategy and research firm focused on emerging shifts in the consumer landscape.

Those young women earn on average eight per cent more than men in their age group, but in some cities, like Atlanta in Georgia and Memphis, Tennessee, women earn around a fifth more than men, according to Reach Advisers’ analysis of Census Bureau data.

On average, American women who work full-time earn about 80 per cent of what men earn.

The report says that one reason young, single women are overtaking men in terms of earnings is because girls are “going to college in droves”. Nearly three-quarters of girls who complete high school go on to university, compared to only two-thirds of boys.

Women are one-and-a-half times more likely than men to graduate from university and to obtain a Master’s degree or higher, the report says.

Census data released in April showed that women overtook men in terms of holding advanced degrees in 2000, with 58 per cent of all US master’s degrees or PhDs awarded to women.

As women go further in their education, they are also holding off on getting married and starting a family.

They’re not holding off on buying a home, though: the percentage of single women who bought homes for the first time has increased by 50 per cent from the 1990s, to 24 per cent of all first-time home-buyers in the US in 2009, the report said.

Families with children, who have driven the market for community developers and home builders since the end of World War II, made up just 23 per cent of households in 2009, the report said.