Benefits March 5, 2004

Women Make Up 36% of Manager Jobs

March 5, 2004 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Women are making inroads into upper management positions, increasing their lot 7% over to the past 12 years now making up 36.4% of all officials and managers in private sector employment.
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Though marked improvement from the relatively scant 29.3% share that women held in official and managerial posts in 1990, 2002’s 36.4% is still disproportionate when compared to the number of women in other job groups. Overall, women made up 48% of the total workforce in 2002, occupying the largest percentages of clerical workers (80.3%), service workers (57.7%), sales workers (56.4%), professionals (51.7%) and technicians (45.9%), according to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) “Glass Ceilings: The Status of Women as Officials and Managers in the Private Sector” study.

The distribution of women in official and manager positions is far from even either. While women make up their greatest share of officials and managers in the health care sector, they make up very few of the same positions in the manufacturing industries. “More women are shattering the proverbial glass ceiling, and many more are chipping holes in it,” EEOC Chair Cari Dominguez said in a news release. “Unfortunately, the gains are not across the board. Disparities exist in the workforce participation of women, by industry. Some industries are doing better than others. We hope this study will assist employers and employees alike in identifying barriers to and opportunities for access and advancement.”

Across all industry groups, the largest percentage of women in higher roles can be found in nursing care facilities, where they make up 77.2% of all managers. After nursing care facilities, women make up the most significant percentage of managerial jobs in:

  • Offices of physicians (67.7%)
  • Community care facilities for the elderly (67.6%)
  • General medical & surgical hospitals (67.5%)
  • Other ambulatory health care services (58.7%)
  • Department stores (56.2%)
  • Legal services (50.6%)
  • Depository credit intermediation (49.2%)
  • Insurance carriers (48.5%)
  • Nondepository credit intermediation (47.0%).

While health care industries may be bountiful with women managers, on the other side manufacturing industries are bereft of women in the top posts. The lowest proportion of women in official and manager roles can be found in motor vehicle body & trailer manufacturing (13.8%), followed by:

  • Aerospace product & parts manufacturing (14.7%)
  • Motor vehicle parts manufacturing (15.1%)
  • Electric power generation, transmission and distribution (15.2%)
  • Other fabricated metal product manufacturing (15.7%)
  • Architectural, engineering and related services (16.1%)
  • Motor vehicle manufacturing (17.3%)
  • Plastics product manufacturing (18.1%)
  • Converted paper product manufacturing (18.2%)
  • General freight trucking industries (18.5%).

The EEOC’s report is based upon data required annually, through a workforce survey, of private sector employers with a minimum of 100 employees as well as federal contractors with at least 50 employees and contracts exceeding $50,000. A copy of the full report can be found at http://www.eeoc.gov/stats/reports/glassceiling/index.html .

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