Women’s History Month by the numbers

I love celebrating Women’s History Month every March, but this year, it feels really special. Women made huge strides in 2018, and from the entrepreneurship front lines to Capitol Hill, they are shattering glass ceilings everywhere.

Currently 25 women serve in the Senate — the most in history. Women are starting businesses in record numbers. And they’re taking over positions of leadership in academia at a rapid clip.

Also heartening: The majority of Americans want this kind of change. A recent Pew Research Center survey revealed about 7 in 10 women feel there are too few women in top political and business positions; about half of men say the same. 

But most U.S. adults also believe that men have an easier time climbing the corporate and political ladders.

“The obstacles they see holding women back are very similar across all realms,” Juliana Menasce Horowitz, co-author of the Pew report, told our Know Your Value team. “They talked about gender discrimination, women having to do more to prove themselves and other structural expectations.”

Though the statistics do vary across sectors, most of the trends are positive. We’ve come a long way -- but the fight for parity isn’t over yet. Here’s a quick look at where women stand in 2019.

Capitol Hill:

The rise of women in top political offices was one of the biggest stories of 2018.  An all-time high of 25 women currently serve in the Senate (only 56 women have ever held Senate positions). Their counterparts in the House include 102 women, 89 of whom are Democrats.

On the state level: Nearly 29 percent of state legislators are women, up sharply from just 4.5 percent in 1971. The share of women governors has grown significantly over the 2000s as well.

Corporate America:

Sadly, change is much slower in the top echelon of the private sector. The number of women at the helm of Fortune 500 hasn’t grown all that much over time. A record 32 women held Fortune 500 CEO roles in 2017 – only 6.4 percent of the total — but that number fell to 24 in 2018 with women like Hewlett-Packard’s Meg Whitman leaving their posts.

Outside of the CEO role specifically, however, trends are more positive. The percentage of women who help shape Fortune 500 companies as board members is growing at a steady clip: It’s more than doubled over the past 12 years, to 22.2 percent in 2017, according to Pew’s research.

Academia:

Academia represents one of the strongest recent increases for women. In 2016, over 30 percent of college and university presidents were women. That’s triple the share from 1986.

Entrepreneurship:

Businesswomen are making serious strides beyond the Fortune 500. American Express’ “State of Women-Owned Businesses Report” revealed there were 12.3 million women-owned businesses in the U.S. last year, which represents 40 percent of the total. It’s an exponential increase from 1972, when women owned just 4.6 percent of U.S. businesses.

Women of color have been a major driver of this growth: The number of businesses they own soared by 163 percent between 2007 and 2018 — almost three times the rate of growth for women overall during the same period.