Accounting firms often rank highly for their gender equality efforts but new research suggests that while this may be true in lower positions, women are substantially underrepresented in higher positions.
Women make up just 17 percent of audit partners of U.S. audit clients, according to the new report, and in major U.S. metropolitan areas like San Jose and Washington, D.C., the number is closer to 10 percent.
The analysis from researchers at Bentley University, University of Colorado Denver and Northeastern University was enabled by a new rule from the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board that requires accounting firms to disclose the name of the partner in charge of each public company audit.
In the past, accounting firms were praised for their gender equality efforts but much of that progress has been limited to the lower ranks, the new research shows.
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