The Gender Gap Among Top Business Executives

This paper examines gender differences among top US business executives using a large executive-employer matched data set spanning the last quarter century. Female executives make up 6% of the sample and exhibit more labor market churning — both higher entry and higher exit rates. Unconditionally, women earn 26% less than men, which decreases to 8% once executive characteristics, firm characteristics, and in particular job title are accounted for. We find that female executives are disproportionately represented in firms with more temporal flexibility and female-friendly corporate cultures, but this does not explain the gender pay gap. Rather, corporate culture is correlated with gender pay gaps within firms; specifically the within-firm gender pay gap is significantly smaller at female-friendly firms.