How Does Compensation Compare for Women Credit Union Executives?

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Guest post written by Chris Burns-Fazzi, Principal, Burns-Fazzi, Brock

For many industries, gender equity has been a topic of discussion. Have you ever wondered how men and women compare as credit union executives and the compensation they receive? We did too.
The NAFCU Annual Conference coming up at the end of July in Nashvillewill feature a Women’s Leadership Summit, with a number of timely topics, including an initial look at how men and women credit union executives compare in regards to compensation and their presence in top executive positions.
A bit of background – for five years now, Burns-Fazzi, Brock (the NAFCU Services Preferred Partner for Executive Compensation and Benefits) has underwritten the annual NAFCU-BFB Survey of Federal Credit Union Executive Benefits & Compensation. Conducted by an independent firm, Clark and Chase Research, there is no cost to participate, and the results are shared with participants as well as each year at the NAFCU Annual Conference. This year, we compared the survey results by gender.
We’ll go through the analysis in much greater detail at the conference, but some highlights —

• The number of top executives across all federal credit unions appears to favor women.
• However, this is largely due to the fact 68% of all Federal credit unions have less than $40 million in assets; 39% have less than $10 million. Women are executives in the majority of these smaller credit unions, especially in the number 2 and 3 executive positions – men are more likely to hold these positions in larger credit unions.
• The survey findings suggest that women executives earn, on average, less than their male counterparts for some asset groups. But how much that difference is attributable to gender, if at all, is unclear – the survey also shows differences in age, educational level and average asset size within each asset group between male and female executives; factors that may also contribute to these differences in compensation.

Clark and Chase Research notes the limitations of survey data and cautions against coming to any firm conclusions based on these results alone. However, we think the survey findings are a good way to begin thinking about this important topic. I hope we’ll see you at the Women’s Leadership Summit to help us start that conversation!