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Challenges Counting Women in U.S. Management

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the Department of Labor, has counted women involved in all levels of management since shortly before 1960. After every release of the decennial census, the Bureau of Labor Statistics incorporates the major changes and revisions to the population controls that have been developed by the U.S. Census. Because of these changes and recategorization of occupations, labor force data over many decades is not strictly comparable.*

How These Numbers Can Be Used

To accurately use the data below, direct comparisons can only be made within a category. Looking at the two tables below, one could compare the percentages of women in management occupations for 1960, 1970, and 1980 to each other, but one could not then compare any of those numbers to the numbers in the second table. 

Grouping of Women in Management Positions

The numbers from all charts below indicate what percentage of all workers in the named occupation were women. For example, in the subsequent chart, 15.6% of all “Managers and administrators, except farm,” positions were held by women in 1960.

In the 1980s, the grouping became called “Managerial and professional specialty occupations” and between 2002 and 2003, the occupation was again recategorized as “Management, professional, and related.” Since the new categorization created a “complete break” in comparability of those datasets, the BLS later “reconstructed” the historical data for 1983-1999 under the more recent occupation grouping “Management, professional, and related.”2 However, these estimates are subject to limitations and still not strictly comparable to data for 2000 and following years.3

Women Corporate Officers

The earliest data that exists for women in the uppermost management positions is from 1995 when Catalyst conducted its first Catalyst Census of Women Corporate Officers. Even today, Catalyst is the only source for a number count of women corporate officers and executive officers. (For this data, look at our Quick Take: Women in U.S. Management.)

*Note: Look at the following web sites for more information about creating comparability in the Current Population Series: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpspopsm.pdf

How to cite this product: Catalyst. Catalyst Quick Take: Women in Management in the United States, 1960-Present. New York: Catalyst, 2013.

• 1. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Table 16: Employed Civilians by Sex, Race, Hispanic Origins, and Occupation, 1958-82," Handbook of Labor Statistics, Bulletin 2175 (December 1983).
• 2. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Historical CPS Employment for 1983-99 on the 2002 Census Industry and Occupational Classifications."
• 3. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Historical CPS Employment for 1983-99 on the 2002 Census Industry and Occupational Classifications."
• 4. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Series Report: Employment Level - Management, Professional, and Related Occupations, Women, 16 years and over, 1983-2012, Series ID: LNU02032526"
• 5. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unpublished table from the Current Population Survey, Employed Persons by Intermediate Occupation, Sex, Race, and Hispanic or Latino Ethnicity,Annual Averages 2000-2010; Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Table 11: Employed Persons by Detailed Occupation, Sex, Race, and Hispanic or Latino Ethnicity, 2012," Annual Averages 2012 (2013).