Despite an ever-increasing call for greater diversity in the boardroom, 2010 was a relatively stagnant year for women, finds the new “2010 Catalyst Census: Fortune 500 Women Board Directors” and “2010 Catalyst Census: Fortune 500 Women Executive Officers and Top Earners” reports.
The studies found that women in 2010 held 15.7 percent of board seats, an increase of 0.5 percent from 2009, and 14.4 percent of executive officer positions, a 0.9 percent increase. The allocation of companies that had at least one woman executive officer remained constant over the two years, at just over two-thirds. Also holding par was the number of companies that had at least two women board directors, at more than 50 percent, the number that had no women on the board at ten percent and the percentage of companies with three or more women directors.
In addition to women appointments, the pay of women directors and officers remained relatively flat. Women executive officers held 7.6 percent of top earner positions, an increase of 1.3 percent over 2009.
“Corporate America needs to get ‘unstuck’ when it comes to advancing women to leadership,” said Ilene H. Lang, Catalyst president and CEO in a statement on the findings. “This is our fifth report where the annual change in female leadership remained flat. If this trend line represented a patient’s pulse—she’d be dead.”
Catalyst used data collected from annual filings made by Fortune 500 companies to the SEC or the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) that were submitted as of June 30. The organization has been taking an annual census of women directors since 1993, and began examining women’s roles in senior leadership in 1996.