One Study Finds Women Executives Making More (See the Fine Print) - Building Gender Balanced Business

• Women who reach the very top corporate management levels make more than their male counterparts when the comparison takes into account age, education and years in the industry, according to research by two professors at the Tepper School of Business of Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania.

• The research found that those few women who reached those top levels made an average of $100,000 more than their male counterparts. The study was based on 16,000 executives over a 14-year period — only 5% of whom were women.

• But note the word “few” — the researchers themselves noted that women rarely reach the highest level and are little represented in the next-highest tier because they tend to stop working before men do.

• The women who did attain the levels pertinent to the study were on average much younger than the average top executive, who was 53 years old and had a 1-in-4 chance of having an MBA.

• “Although women may still be likely to face gender discrimination through unpleasant work environments or tougher, less rewarding, assignments, our results find that there does appear to be equal pay and equal opportunity for women if they stay in the workforce and get to the executive level,” said Robert A. Miller, professor of economics and strategy at the Tepper School and one of the study’s co-authors.

A summary of the study