Professional Issues

Women increasingly are attaining leadership positions in public accounting firms, and many more of them, as well as men, are taking advantage of the alternative career paths being offered by a growing number of firms. These are two of the findings of A Decade of Changes in the Accounting Profession: Workforce Trends and Human Capital Practices, a study commissioned by the AICPA Work/Life and Women’s Initiatives Executive Committee. To illustrate, not only are 19% of all firm partners female—up from 12% a decade ago—but once women become partners, there seem to be fewer barriers to their advancement to senior positions, such as audit or tax director or office managing partner. More than 2,600 CPAs employed in firms and in business and industry took part in the survey, which is the fourth the committee has funded since 1992. The survey is available under the Research tab at www.aicpa.org/worklife .