By Bethany McLean
Underneath the stories are the numbers, and these show that change, in the ways that matter most, have been superficial. A Government Accountability Office report from December 2017 concluded that women had made no progress—none—in increasing their ranks in management in the financial industry from 2007 to 2015, with women in New York faring the worst in the country. The number of women in what the G.A.O. defines as “senior-level management positions” held constant at just under 30 percent. Lest education gaps be blamed, the report also pointed out that between 2011 and 2015 women in the financial industry possessed 58 percent of the bachelor’s degrees, 60 percent of the master’s degrees, and 45 percent of the M.B.A.’s. According to Ariane Hegewisch, a program director at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, women in the brokerage business earn on average less than 60 percent of what men do.
