The 20 states with the most women CEOs

Abigail Johnson, the chief executive of Fidelity.REUTERS/Brian Snyder

• ZenBusiness published an analysis of employment and earnings of female CEOs in each US state using data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey.
• Average earnings for female chief executives varies across the country, as does the share of CEOs who are women.
• Oregon had the largest share of women chief executives, where nearly half of CEOs were female.
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If you are a working woman looking to move up in your career to chief executive, you may want to work in Oregon, the District of Columbia, or New Mexico.

ZenBusiness, a company that helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses, recently analyzed average earnings for female chief executives and shares of CEOs who are women across states and industries. To do this, ZenBusiness used 2015, 2017, and 2019 data from the US Census Bureau's Current Population Survey.

Their findings show that even at the top corporate positions, there is still a gender pay gap.

In 2019, female CEOs made around $150,400 on average while male CEOs made $206,300. That is, female CEOs earned around 73% of what male CEOs earned in the same year, a pay gap of 27%.

At the industry level, insurance had the widest gender pay gap of 46.7%. Female CEOs in insurance earned around $157,200, while male CEOS earned $294,700.

In contrast, the average hospital female chief executive earns more than their male counterpart, earning 199% of male CEOs annually.

"We found it particularly interesting that the hospital industry provides the best pay and gender distribution among female business leaders," Joey Morris, part of ZenBusiness's creative team, told Business Insider. "The hospital industry is the industry closest to achieving an equal gender ratio in leadership and pays female chief executives vastly more than any other industry at $390,700 per year."

According to ZenBusiness' analysis, the average income of female CEOs has increased by 30.1% from 2015 to 2019, while the average income of male CEOs has increased by 27.0%. Although incomes for CEOs of both sexes have increased in the past few years, women CEOs still make less than men.

But the income of female CEOs also varies by state. Average incomes for female CEOs ranges from around $65,300 in Wisconsin to nearly $284,300 in Maryland. The average female chief executive in Oregon, the state that had the largest share of female CEOs, made $113,322.

Half the states' chief executives have a share of female CEOs larger than the average share among the states and DC at 29.42%. Nearly half the CEOs in Oregon are female, followed closely behind by DC at 47.45%.

Read on to find out the 20 states and DC with the largest shares of female chief executives, along with their average annual income:

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