No. 13
February 2, 1999
By Dominique Lazanski*

Despite the cries of gender victimization feminists, evidence reveals that, for the number of qualified women in the workplace, women are indeed making progress in filling senior-level management positions. Women are also graduating from business and professional programs at an increasing rate each year. While many women obtain professional degrees and pursue management positions, many still choose to take a sabbatical from these careers or work part-time to raise families, or start businesses of their own. In short, the professional achievement of women reflects their personal choices. Unfortunately, gender preferences advocates do not acknowledge these facts.

The Facts About the Figures

The glass ceiling complaint is based on the difference between women’s participation rates in the labor force, and their representation at the highest levels of Fortune 500 management. The problem with the argument is in the comparison. The comparison should be based on the qualified labor pool for each position, not the general labor market.

If women constitute only three percent of the labor pool with the qualifications for corporate senior managers — typically a MBA and 25 years in the labor force — we would expect women to hold approximately three percent of senior managersrs’ positions. Figures regarding senior management in Fortune 500 companies are meaningless unless we know the gender composition of the qualified labor pool.

Women’s dramatic increase in corporate senior management positions from the mid-1980s, when women held about 1.5 percent of these positions, is often overlooked. In 1998, according to Catalyst, a women’s research organization in New York, women hold 11.2 percent of Fortune 500 management positions – more than triple the estimate put forward by the Glass Ceiling Commission in 1995.

U.S. Department of Labor statistics reveal that, though they represent only 46 percent of the U.S. labor force, women already hold 49 percent of all management jobs. Should current trends continue, women could reasonably expect to occupy as many as 15 percent of senior corporate management posts in these publicly-held corporations within ten years.²

Measuring Choice

Women’s lifestyle choices directly impact their role in the workplace. Education and time spent in the workforce provide two measures of a candidate’s market value. Historically, more women have pursued degrees in less financially-rewarding fields of study than their male counterparts, while accumulating less continuous time in the workforce. In addition, women have higher turnover rates than men.³ Each of these factors bears directly on career position and compensation levels.

Women shatter the glass ceiling by making career-oriented decisions about education and time spent in the workplace. This shift has already taken place and the results are evident in women’s market success today.

The proportion of women college graduates receiving bachelor’s degrees in education declined from 36 percent in 1971 to 12 percent in 1996, while the proportion of women graduates receiving degrees in business and management rose from 3 percent to 17 percent over the same period.⁴

In 1996, women earned more bachelor’s degrees in business than any other subject area, a development that bodes well for the future of women in the market.⁵

As for graduate school and professional study, Figure 1 illustrates the steady rise in the number of professional degrees earned by women. In 1996, women earned 43 percent of all law degrees, 40 percent of MDs, and thirty seven percent of MBAs.

Finally, their presence in Fortune 500 companies is not an accurate representation of women’s success in the business world. Women desire more flexibility in their workplace and they are starting their own businesses in record numbers. According to a recent study conducted by the National Foundation for Women Business Owners (NFWBO), women own nearly eight million businesses in the U.S., and those businesses employ more than one quarter of the nation’s workforce.⁶

Conclusion

The myth of the glass ceiling, a close relative of the pay-gap myth, continues to be a rallying cry for feminist groups and advocates of gender preferences. It would be false to suggest that discrimination no longer exists, but women’s choices should not be systematically attributed to discrimination. Women determine their role in the marketplace with a variety of personal choices. As the facts confirm, women are actively fulfilling the roles they choose.

1 The phrase "glass ceiling" refers to the idea that discrimination against women in the workplace is a formidable barrier to their corporate upward mobility. This publication is an update to the November 1995 Fact Sheet entitled, "Smoke and Mirrors: Women and the Glass Ceiling" by Michael Lynch and Katherine Post.

2 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1998, (Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C., 1998), Tables 646 and 672.

3 U.S. Department of Labor, "Facts on Working Women." No. 93-5, December 1993, p. 8.

4 Frank B. Morgan (National Center for Education Statistics), [E.D. Tabs], "Degrees and Other Awards Conferred by Degree-granting Institutions: 1995-96," NCES 98-256, (U.S. Department of Education: Washington, D.C.,1998), Table 4b.

5 Ibid.

6 National Foundation for Women Business Owners, "Women Business Owners' Economic Impact Re-Affirmed," Research Report Summary, March 27, 1996.

* Dominique Lazanski is a public policy fellow at the Pacific Research Institute. For additional information, contact Naomi Lopez at (415) 989-0833.