According to reports this year by Fortune magazine, only 13 of the 500 top companies boast female CEOs. The results of research by Darden Assoc. Prof. Erika James and Arizona State University Assoc. Prof. Peggy Lee on women in the workplace uncovered some possible reasons for this inequality. They found that when a woman is placed in the CEO position at a company, that company's stocks can drop up to three percent.
According to Sheila Wellington, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, the stock drop should be completely irrelevant to a board of directors looking to hire a new CEO.
"If I were on the board of directors I would consider the best-qualified person for the job regardless of gender," she added.
The playing field, however, is not always level, Wellington and James said. The stock drop is just one symptom of a greater problem -- women's limited mobility in the workplace.
"For one thing, there is no doubt that women don't receive the kind of mentoring that men do," Wellington said. "Mentoring is a kind of natural experience. Someone at the top of a company sees something in someone younger, and an older man is more likely to see something that reminds him of himself in a young man."
As a result, women are excluded from "informal networks" that foster a career and give you information about the interworkings of an organization, Wellington said.
Another problem limiting women in the "business of business" is stereotypes, she added.
"There are generic stereotypes that apply to women of all areas of work," she said. "The complicated psychological factors result in leaders that don't give women the feedback they need in evaluations to avoid upsetting them," she added.
According to James, after examining these factors, it is clearer why placing a women in the position of CEO is still an anomaly.
"There is a level of discomfort when a woman is placed in such a high position, because it is contrary to what we have become accustomed to," James said.
In the stock market, that discomfort shows in the temporary drop companies experience in response to a new female CEO.
According to James, "tokenism" also accounts for the temporary stock drop following a woman's takeover of a leadership role.
"Tokenism is when someone holds a token position, making them unique, and their stereotypical characteristics are exaggerated," she said. "In this case, exaggerated responses to sensitivity and other characteristics that are considered womanly would be treated with greater scrutiny."
According to James, all of these factors come together to limit a woman's job mobility.
There are ways for women to combat the current gender disparity, according to Wellington. One way is through education.
"I do recommend that younger women who are getting their college degrees to at some point consider graduate education because the playing field is still not level," she said. "Having a solid graduate degree is very helpful."
Once out in the workforce, women should closely investigate other women in different fields and the job mobility of those industries, Wellington said.
"If you are the kind of person who wants to be a CEO, the path is not in a support role like human resources or public relations," she said. "You want to focus on looking at all the data you can gather and remember that for every path you have taken, there's a path you haven't."
Wellington pointed that that by combining all of these insights about the job market, the risk factor companies often associate with women could lessen and in turn increase a women's job mobility.
"Ultimately there needs to be greater exposure of women in the CEO position," James said. "The more women we have in these positions the less it will be perceived as an anomaly"
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