Over the course of 2023, women made progress toward gender equity in corporate America but, in a year of corporate belt-tightening and continued uncertainty about the post-pandemic economy, progress was slow.
America's biggest and most profitable companies are leading the way when it comes to driving gender diversity, even as government regulations designed to speed progress remain challenged in US courts.
At the other end of the spectrum, female startup founders saw little progress when it came to raising funding to grow America's next generation of multitrillion-dollar companies. In 2023, venture capital investment plunged amid high interest rates, economic uncertainty and a Silicon Valley banking crisis, and progress toward gender equity in startup funding stalled.
CNBC looked at key data — from Fortune 500 giants to Silicon Valley startups — for an assessment of the gains made by women in the workforce this year.
Gender diversity progress at America's 500 most profitable companies
The most profitable companies, those in the Fortune 500, continued to make progress in terms of gender diversity in the C-suite, according to a report from executive search firm Spencer Stuart. Women accounted for 40% of Fortune 500 C-suite jobs in 2023, up from 38% in 2022.
Improving gender diversity at the top of corporate America is seen as key to closing the persistent gender pay gap — which barely budged from 2022 to 2023 — and boosting corporate profitability. In a year when the Nobel Prize in Economics went to a female economist studying the reasons for gender gaps in workforce participation and earnings, progress inched forward and men continued to hold the vast majority top leadership roles at America's most powerful companies.
Female chief executive officers in the Fortune 500 increased representation by 1 percentage point, from 9% in 2022 to 10% in 2023. Over the same period, the share of female chief financial officers rose 2 percentage points (from 16% to 18%), while the share of female chief operating officers decreased 3 percentage points (from 14% to 11%.)
Women were over-represented in the sorts of C-suite roles which rarely lead to the top job, and companies continued to appoint a greater share of women than men to those jobs in 2023. Women were 76% of chief diversity and inclusion officers (up 2 percentage points year over year), 70% of chief human resources officers (up 2 percentage points) and 64% of chief communications officers (up 3 percentage points).
America's largest 3,000 public companies
Looking at a wider swath of companies, in the Russell 3,000, which comprises the 3,000 largest public companies listed on US exchanges, women held 16.6% of Named Executive Officer jobs in 2023, up from 14.8% in 2022, according to data analyzed by executive and board research firm Equilar for CNBC. In that same group, women held 7.7% of CEO jobs in 2023, up from 6.9% in 2022.
(Named Executive Officers are among the top five highest paid executives at US public companies and the Securities and Exchange Commission requires companies disclose their names.)
Women held the greatest share of executive roles in utilities (21.9%), consumer discretionary (19.1%), communications services (17.8%) and healthcare (17.8%). Energy, technology and industrials had the lowest share of female executives in 2023 (9.7%, 14% and 14.4% respectively).
Within the Russell 3,000 women enjoyed greater representation in corporate boardrooms than in the executive suite, even as a new California board diversity mandate and Nasdaq board diversity rule came under fire in US courts.
As of the third quarter of 2023, women held 29.2% of board positions, a moderate increase from 28.4% in Q4 2022, according to reports from Equilar. While pressure to diversify their ranks persists, 64 companies in the Russell 3,000 had zero female board members as of Q3 and shareholders continued to appoint fewer women than men to board seats. Women accounted for 36.5% of new board directors in the third quarter of 2023, down from 41.1% in the first quarter of the year.
Funding female founders
When it comes to funding the next wave of American businesses, venture capitalists funneled 2.1% of VC dollars to companies with all-female founders in 2023 — the same share as in 2022, according to PitchBook data. VCs rewarded women who partnered with men — the share of venture capital that went to companies with at least one male and one female co-founder increased to 21.7% in 2023, up from 16.5% in 2022.
Continued low funding has "been a conversation across the industry for a while now, but not much has changed," says Kyle Stanford, lead VC analyst, PitchBook. "It's difficult to judge the problem strictly on the data, but from 5 years ago to now, that it has barely changed highlights further the problem that women face when raising VC."
And things may not shift any time soon. "2023 was a year when it would have been surprising for any trends to see significant change, Stanford says. "As companies and investors are trying to figure out where the new normal is, change in trend is going to be a challenge."
Women in the workforce
For America's rank-and-file workers, the unemployment rate for women – who left the workforce in greater numbers than men during the pandemic — improved in 2023. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for women aged 20 and older decreased to 3.1% in November 2023, down from 3.3% in November 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The trend held across racial groups with unemployment among Black, Hispanic and white female workers falling year over year.
By comparison, the unemployment rate for men aged 20 and older over the same period increased from 3.3% in November 2022 to 3.7% in November 2023.
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