Women leaders in nonprofits lag behind, study says

MONROVIA, Calif. — At an organization where 45 percent of United States senior leaders are women, Romanita Hairston’s gender is mostly a nonissue as she oversees children’s welfare programs at World Vision, the giant evangelical relief agency.

But in the larger evangelical universe high-ranking women like Hairston remain a relative rarity.

A new study by researchers at Gordon College in Wenham, Mass., and Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., has confirmed what many have long suspected — that many evangelical institutions lag far behind the general marketplace in leadership roles for women.

Looking at more than 1,400 evangelical organizations, researchers for the Women in Leadership National Study found that women held 21 percent of board positions, 19 percent of top-paid leadership roles and 16 percent of CEO posts in 2010.

In comparison women make up 43 percent of nonprofit boards and 40 percent of CEOs in the general marketplace. (TAB)