Abstract

A persistent ethical issue in society is the gender compensation gap—the income inequality between men and women at the same organization performing equal work. The worldwide increase of women CEOs coupled with worldwide advocacy and interest for income and gender equality makes understanding the CEO gender compensation gap vital. The tendency of men and women to select different jobs leads to industry gender composition – the distribution of men and women workers within occupations. Very few studies that examined CEO compensation considered industry gender composition. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of industry gender composition on CEO compensation. I gathered data from public United States firms between 2010 and 2018, from Compustat and Execucomp. The final sample consisted of 3,277 firm-year observations (182 women CEOs and 3,095 men CEOs). Results have implications for women interested in pursuing top-level positions as well as human resource departments, particularly with regards to succession planning.