The Glass Ceiling in the Granite State: Women's Earnings and Jobs

American women earn less than American men. Thus, it's not a surprise that women in New Hampshire earn less than men in that state. That's according to a report of the New Hampshire Women's Policy Institute. The report offers a lot of common sense insights and solutions, perhaps because it was written by an economist, Ross Gittell, an economics professor at the University of New Hampshire's Whittemore School of Business.

Rather than calling for tougher enforcement of anti-discrimination laws or the passage of new ones, the report zeros in on reducing occupational segregation. When more college women major in the same subjects as men and choose careers in currently male dominated occupations, that male/female earnings differential should shrink.

One issue that remains a bit murky revovles around the following facts:

Among the state's 25 public companies, only 13 percent of the executive officers are women and nearly 9 percent of the corporate board members are women. Sixteen, or 64 percent of the companies have no women among the top five paid executive officers. And 12, or 48 percent, have no women on the board of directors.

Smart New Hampshire stockholders should make sure that "the glass ceiling" isn't the explanation for these statistics. If I were a stockholder in any of these companies, my only concern would be with making money. In my experience when women are turned loose and given the power to excel, they do. Have these companies looked hard enough for women executives and board members? If you're a stockholder, that would be a good question to bring up at the next meeting.

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