Women Executives Have Higher Job-Quitting Rate

Women executives are more than twice as likely to leave their job as men, whether it is voluntarily or involuntarily, a new Oregon State University study suggests.

For this study, main author John Becker-Blease, an assistant professor of finance at Oregon State University, and the study's co-authors at Loyola Marymount University and Trinity College, examined data from Standard&Poor's 1500 firms, classifying departures as voluntary or not, according to the public news accounts that come with the leaving of an executive.

The results showed that nearly 7.2% of the women executives included in the study, left their job, unlike only 3.8% of men.

When accounting for voluntary and involuntary rates, the figures are also higher for women: 4.3% versus 2.8% for men, for voluntary departures, and 2.9% versus 0.9% for involuntary rates.

Becker-Blease said that, as it could be seen with Carly Fiorina and Patricia Dunn at Hewlett-Packard, when powerful females executives are leaving, the media is all over the place and makes it a “high-profile news event”.

However, “despite these very public departures, relatively little is really known about women executives, whether they are more likely to depart or be fired than men, and the reasons for their departures,” he adds.

Becker-Blease said that according to the research results, the reasons for which a woman is more likely to leave a job are social or domestic responsibilities, and this might also be the reason for which there are more voluntary departures in women's case.

The researchers “had to dig deep to tease out any systematic patterns behind these departures” to finally find that “women were slightly more likely to leave smaller firms, and firms with more male-dominated boards, but this was a small effect size.”

The interesting fact is that despite general evidence that women are more likely to leave their positions, the researchers did not find strong discrimination patterns.

Also, even if women CEO are quite rare - only 13 women CEOs existed among Fortune 500 companies, according to a 2009 report, companies with female executives are more likely to favor other women rise in ranks.

Becker-Blease added that “women benefit from women in positions of leadership," and this study “contributes to the small body of work out there on women at the executive level.

“I think it is reasonably good news for women, in that we did not find evidence of discrimination at an obvious level, but the different rates of departure from the executive ranks is troubling.”

In terms of the higher rate of being dismissed from a job, the researchers imply that women at the mid-levels of management may lack the kind of opportunities and professional support that they need to climb up to the top ranks.

“Recent research offers some intriguing evidence suggesting that ... the disparity isn't really about gender, but about the experience those women bring to the table [even though] the market may seem to perceive women as less capable business leaders,” said Becker-Blease.

“It's likely that as more and more women earn opportunities at mid-and upper-level management, this will translate into more opportunities for successful stints as executives.”

The study is published in the October issue of Economic Inquiry.