Forget about the traditional image of accountants as being somewhat conservative males. In recent years there’s been a rapid growth in the numbers of women in the accounting profession, and now the US Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that 61.1% of all accountants and auditors are females.
This incredible swing in the gender balance of the accounting profession is even more apparent when compared to other BLS data showing that women made up just 39% of all accountants and auditors in 1983, 44.1% in 1985 and just made it across the barrier at 52.1% in 1995.
A Woman's Place is in Accounting
According to the New York-based American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), across firms of all sizes, women now occupy between 11% and 31% of all senior leadership positions (which include policy-level partners, official managing partners, and directors of tax/audit/consulting/industry specialties).
The AICPA also notes that In 2004, women were 56% of all newly hired CPAs, 42% of all full-time CPAs, and 75% of all part-time CPAs.
An entrepreneurially-minded female accountant has a number of powerful motivations to set up her own practice. She can work the number of hours she wants at the times she wants, giving her the freedom to combine a career with her home and family. In her own firm she can dictate her own agenda and not have to be confronted with the ‘glass ceiling’ attitude that still persists in many firms.
Accounting Has Changed
As a woman entering accounting in the 1970s, Diane Dutton, who's now the Virtual CFO Consultant for ESO Business Advisory Services in Las Vegas, Nevada was a rarity.
Dutton recalls sitting in on a graduate-level accounting class at Pace University in 1975, shortly before she began there; she estimated about 10 percent of the class was female. But that changed quickly: By 1979, when she took the class, as many as 40% of the attendees were women.
"The analytical aspect of the accounting profession over the last 20 years has been more attractive to women," she says. "It's not, 'Crunch this number here,' or, 'Prepare this report there.' There's a lot more personal interaction."
Women are more likely than men to take a break from working to have and raise children. Because they have families, women are also more likely to forego higher-level, time- and travel-intensive positions with large, publicly traded companies in favor of self-employment or jobs with smaller firms that offer fewer and more flexible hours.
This doesn’t mean that women are staying away from management positions in the bigger accounting firms. The AICPA says that women represent 19% of all partners at firms, although more importantly, they form 43% of all new partners.
The Public Accounting Report of December 15, 2008 also illustrates how women are penetrating the once exclusively male domains of the big name firms and now comprise:
- 51.5% of all employees at PricewaterhouseCoopers
- 49.1% of all employees at Ernst & Young
- 47.8% of all employees at KPMG
- 45.1% of all employees at Deloitte
And unlike twenty or thirty years ago, now they aren’t working as secretaries! The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes: “There are a variety of positions that an accountant may occupy as they climb the corporate ladder to management positions.
“While they may start as cost accountants, junior internal auditors, or trainees, they will rise into positions such as accounting manager, chief cost accountant, budget director, manager of internal auditing, controller, treasurer, financial vice presidents, chief financial officers, or corporation presidents.”
More Women Study Accountancy
It all begins with the educational process. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) says that women have made up the majority of accounting graduates since the mid-1990s. It’s the same in many other professions.
Marilyn Ross outlines the present situation in the introduction to her book Shameless Marketing for Brazen Hussies: “Already women are getting 55 percent of all bachelor's and master's degrees.
“In the next decade...most of us will have a female doctor, lawyer, accountant, or stockbroker. And 88 percent of respondents in the Ladies Home Journal Third Annual American Woman Survey, think the great scientists of this century are just as likely to be women as men. It's going to be a woman's world!”
Sources
National Center for Education Statistics, "Table 265: Bachelor's, master's, and doctor's degrees conferred by degree-granting institutions, by sex of student and field of study: 2005-2006,"Digest of Education Statistics (2007).
Current Population Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Table 11: Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity 2008" (2009).
AICPA, AICPA Work/Life and Women's Initiatives 2004 Research: A Decade of Changes in the Profession: Workforce Trends and Human Capital Practices (2004).
"Women Continue to Post Steady Gains in Partnership Percentage," Public Accounting Report (December 15, 2008).
Philip Keeffe - Phil Keeffe is an Australian journalist originally from California who has lived in Sydney since 1968. His communications background ...
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