March 8th was International Women’s Day so thought it a great time to take a look at women’s employment and gain a solid picture of the progress women have made in employment in the United States with a specific focus on women in leadership, in the CEO suite. While overall employment for women in the US labor force has increased and now represents 46.8%, the disappointing result is in the tech sector, where women make up a significantly lower percentage.
Since we focus primarily on leadership roles, thought it of interest to examine the women in CEO roles. Finding a great resource in Catalyst, a group researching women and work, I have included this link on the percentage of women in CEO roles in the S & P 500. http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-sp-500-companies Women make up 5.2% of the CEO’s in S & P 500 companies and occupy 21.2% of the board seats in the S & P 500. The total population of women in the S &P 500 is 44.7%.
According to the article in CNN Money http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/18/news/women-ceos-2017/index.html the number of women CEO’s declined in 2017 with the departure of Marissa Mayer, Yahoo, Meg Whitman HP, Irene Rosenfeld, Mondelez, Sheri McCoy, Avon, Illene Gordon, Ingredion, and Kim Lubel, CST Brands.
“Still, there’s reason to hope for a better 2018. Recent conversations around sexual harassment at work have “increased our consciousness about the importance of more gender-balanced leadership in organizations,” noted Iris Bohnet, director of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School.”