Wall Street has long been called a boys' club and that label has become increasingly accurate in the past decade.
Women are disappearing from the ranks of finance workers, despite a decrease in sexual discrimination charges and a rash of new corporate programs to attract and retain them. Meanwhile, the number of men in the business has surged.
In the past 10 years, 141,000 women, 2.6% of female workers in finance, disappeared from the industry, while the ranks of men in the industry grew by 389,000, or 9.6%, according to a review of data provided by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The discrepancy is particularly pronounced at brokerages, investment banks and asset management companies.
The shift in gender ratio contradicts changes in the overall workforce. In the U.S. labor market, the ranks of women have grown by 4.1% in the past decade, outpacing a 0.5% increase in male workers.
The numbers suggest that women bore the brunt of the layoffs in the recent recession and sexism is still a problem in U.S. banks, insurance companies and real estate firms. But others forces may be at play.
Click here to see charts of the changing demographics: Charting the Changing Face of Wall Street
-- Sexual Harassment Still a Problem in Finance | Women Fight for Equality on the Trading Floor --
Computers and Career Switchers
The ranks of women thinned even during the bullish market that ran from 2001 to 2006. William Rodgers III, a Rutgers University professor and former chief economist of the Labor Department, said that technology likely accounts for some of the shift. Across the working world, computers have replaced junior, back-office workers, jobs that were largely filled by women.
Some of the women comprised in the statistics had a different explanation: Wall Street, saddled with stress and scandal, has lost much of its allure.
"There's the idea that finance is less exciting, more scary," said Myra Strober, a labor economist and founding director of Stanford University's Institute for Research on Women and Gender. "I would add that it has looked more seamy, so to speak, and women may have more scruples about that than men."
In 2000, after two decades as an investment banker, Valerie Corbett took a 60% pay cut to join the executive staff of a school-management company; she now runs IntelliGreen Partners, a green-building consultancy.
Corbett, 61, wanted a less "gut-wrenching" and volatile career. "I just had certain priorities in life and at that point turning myself into some hard-bitten deal-doer just didn't appeal to me," Corbett said. "And when I started it was more exciting; it was about helping the economy. At the end I just felt that I was just making rich men richer."
The Young and the Restless
Young women, in particular, are becoming a rarity in the country's banks, brokerage houses and insurance companies. Since 2000, the number of women between ages 20 and 35 working in finance has dropped by 315,000, or 16.5%, while the number of men in that age range grew by 93,000, or 7.3%.
"It's not because Wall Street is not a fascinating place to be, it's just that there are other places that are more fascinating," said Janet Hanson, founder of 85 Broads, a networking group that, among other things, tries to attract women to finance. "Women are finding their entrepreneurial groove."
Meghan Muntean joined Lehman Brothers straight out of Princeton University in 2006, when "the markets were hot and everyone who was anyone was going off to Wall Street." She stayed on through the bankruptcy and left to start ChickRx LLC, a website for female health advice and products.
"It became clear that there was nothing to be afraid of on the uncertain path," she said of the crisis.
Muntean said that all of her contemporaries were considering other professions at the time, but her female friends acted on their impulses more often.
Monica Murphy also became an entrepreneur, leaving Goldman Sachs in early 2008 to start SoleMates LLC, which makes protective covers for high-heels.
Murphy said her female coworkers were more open to a broader definition of success than her male contemporaries.
"I think it's because there's pressure on women to have more than just a career," Murphy said. "The whole work-life balance thing -- for men, that's not always a big deal, but for women, it's always an issue."
Subtle Sexism
Many women report that sexism is still rife on Wall Street, albeit less overt. Sexual discrimination charges by women at finance companies dropped 28% from 2000 to 2009, according to data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But the number of charges per woman in the industry climbed during the recession in 2008 and 2009.
Strober, the Stanford economist noted that corporations have become much better at mitigating harassment claims, transferring aggrieved employees or giving them handsome severance settlements before they formally press charges.
"It had nowhere to go but down," she said of the number of discrimination charges.
A spokeswoman for a bulge-bracket bank who asked to remain unnamed said that tiny acts of sexism weigh down the careers of women on Wall Street over time. She said that a 30-year-old investment banker who just got married, for example, might not be assigned to a lucrative deal if a managing director suspects that she will be taking maternity leave soon.
Murphy, the SoleMates entrepreneur who worked at Goldman for six years, said the social aspect of the job was awkward.
"I always was invited out, as were the other younger women, but oftentimes you didn't want to go," she said. "It was a strange thing to be 24 and to be going to drinks with 45-year-old men."
Muntean said that many of her female coworkers got smaller bonuses because they didn't golf or pal around with male managing directors.
"There were a couple that tried to be buddy-buddy with the guys, but it never really worked," she said. "It wasn't like the '60s, getting slapped on the butt all the time. It was very subtle."
Trying to Balance
Wall Street is not keen to talk about the gender shift. A number of firms, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Lazard Ltd., declined to answer questions for this piece and many of those that responded declined to detail the male-to-female ratios of their staff.
Still, finance companies have rolled out a host of initiatives aimed at attracting, retaining and empowering female workers.
Deutsche Bank, for example, helped found the Women on Wall Street networking group in 1995. The organization's 2,000-person annual conference -- WOWS, for short -- sold out in 35 minutes last year, according to Deutsche spokesman John Gallagher.
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney has a blog in which it highlights its female financial advisors. In 2008, Goldman launched an internship-like program called Returnship, intended, in part, to draw women who took a break to have children back into the working world.
At Bank of America Corp., 61% of the workers are women.
One bright spot for sexual equality is evident in the wave of women who joined the industry in the 1970s and early 1980s. The number of women in the business over 55 years old has grown by 366,000, or 56%, since 1999, outpacing a 234,000 increase, or 34%, in similar aged men.
Click here to see charts of the changing demographics: Charting the Changing Face of Wall Street
Write to Kyle Stock
Related:
-- Sexual Harassment Still a Problem in Finance
-- Women Fight for Equality on the Trading Floor