Study finds few women CEOs in the Garden State

By: Daniel Munoz
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... Why are so few women in New Jersey CEOs?
..... A recent study by the group Executive Women in New Jersey fond few women in these top leadership roles, through some gains have been made over the past decade.
..... The study looked at New Jersey companies listed on the Russel 3000 Index, a stock market index of the 3,000 largest publicly held businesses in the United States.
..... There were 74 New Jersey companies, and only six of them had a woman as a CEO, up form four out of 111 companies in 2013.
..... "Relatively little has changed at the top," the study said.
..... Lisa Kaplowitz, executive director of the Rutgers Center for Women in Business, said women get stuck in "non-promotable work in the office, like note taking, running the employee resource groups, taking on the emotional labor of the office, as the support role. Women are viewed as not as ambitious, which is just not true.
..... Outside of the office, women still take on the majority of housework and child care at home.
..... "There's the assumption that she doesn't want the promotion, the assumption that she doesn't want to travel, the assumption that she isn't commuted to her job. all of that is a false narrative, Kaplowitz continued.
..... Courtney McCormick, president of the board of Executive women in New Jersey, an association whose mission is to make sure women get opportunities in senior corporate leadership, suggested that many women were in positions not directly associated with profit and loss- that is, the meat of decision-making in a company, which boards were seeking out when selecting a CEO and corporate board members.
..... "Where you've seen a lot of progress in women;s leadership in the C-suite has been more in the ... human resources functions and the general counsel functions, government affairs, so those individuals tend to get overlooked," said McCormick, who also is senior vice president of audit, enterprise risk and compliance at the utility company PSEG.
..... "Coming into corporations, maybe for years ago, a lot of the opportunities for women first became available just through pipelines in the legal function and the HR function," McCormick said.

Other study results

..... According to the study, four New Jersey companies had boards where at least half of the members were women: pharmaceutical copay Organon & Company, with 69% of the board; utility company American Water with 60%; clothing retailer The children's Place, with 55%; and pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson with 50%.
..... Only two companies or 3%, had no women on their boards of directors, down from 33 companies in 2013, or 30%
..... Of the 725 boards seats across these 74 companies, 209- 29% - were held by women.
..... That's up 15 points form 2013, when 14% were held by women.
..... The study found that women accounted for 191 of the 699 top executives at these 74 companies or 27% - up from 16% in 2013.
..... "I'm happy to see the progress, but we can't let tokenism get in the way of equity and equality," Kaplowitz said.

Child care problems

..... Michele Siekerka, president and CEO of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, said a lack of access to child care is one key reason why fewer women are visible in top coprolite positions.
..... Many women are present at the entry and middle levels at companies, Sickerka said, but :as you get higher in an organization, allot of people are having to choose between where they spend their time, and a lot times women are self-opting to say "I need to spend more time with my family right now,' and so they hold their own career back.
..... "If you don't have a safe place to put your child, somebody's not going to work, or they're not working the extra hours that sometimes it takes to climb the ladder, because they're the one that has to get home after school's over, whereas others who are rising are more out at those business functions, events, meetings, the face-time, all that stuff that traditionally takes people up to the C-suite," Siekerka continued.
..... And the child care problem could worsen for states like New Jersey, with advocates warning of a "child care cliff" as federal funding runs out.
..... Pandemic-era federal funds expired at the end of September, [2023] and while New Jersey has spend the grants out to last through the end of June next year, [2024] more congressional action is needed to appropriate further money, advocates say.
..... The Century Foundation previously estimated that without federal intervention, over 104,000 children could loss access to child care amid the closure of over 1,300 separate programs. that could spell $453 million less in productivity.
..... "For working families, this is their version of "too big to fail," said Cynthia Rice, a senior policy maker with Advocates for Children of New Jersey. "It's uncertain as to what will happen to families who need to go to work.
..... "Women seem to take the brunt," she said.

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