Senior women executives at large U.S. companies want the top job just as much as men, a survey released Thursday said, striking against theories that more women are opting out of the business rat race.
Fifty-five percent of top female executives are aiming for the chief executive or equivalent position, according to a survey by research firm Catalyst, compared with 57 percent of top male executives.
"We wanted to determine whether gender really is having an impact in the workplace," said Paulette Gerkovich, Catalyst's senior director of research. "We don't see that women with children are planning to leave in significant numbers."
The survey found that today's women are more likely to make sacrifices in the name of their careers, and are happy to do so. These "trade-offs" include temporarily giving up personal pursuits like marriage and children.
"I think that if they would have done this study 20 years ago, it would be more difficult for women," said Pat Heim, author and chief executive of The Heim Group, a management consulting firm. "Men are now involved in their families. They want to go to their kids' games, and they're sharing more of the household duties."
Catalyst, a non-profit organization focused on women's issues, polled 705 female and 243 male executives within three reporting levels of the CEO at companies picked from the 1,000 largest U.S. companies.
Both men and women report problems with balancing their professional and personal lives, according to the survey. Fifty-one percent of women and 43 percent of men desire more work-life balance, including more telecommuting and flexible schedules.
Women cited seeking out high-profile assignments and networking as their most successful strategies for advancement, though they did report struggling with gender-based stereotypes, lack of female role models and exclusion from informal networking opportunities.