Women can have family or become CEO, not both - study finds

Female executives can rise to the top or they can have a large family, but not both – that’s according to a recent study conducted by Emerald Group Publishing.

And despite the fact that there are now many female CEOs with families, this research claims that the more children a woman has, the less likely she is to reach the highest management position.

In the study entitled ‘Factors influencing attainment of CEO position for women’, Dene Hurley and Amod Choudhary from City University of New York found that the number of years spent in education and the number of employees in the business play significant roles in determining the likelihood of having a female appointed as a CEO.

Hurley explained: “Of the three variables we explored in the study, the number of children a woman has makes the largest impact. At 51.34%, the likelihood of attaining a CEO position is highest for women when they do not have any children.