Source:   Tampa Bay Business Journal

Women CEOs took a disproportionate pay cut in the wake of last year’s financial meltdown and lagged significantly in bonus and perquisite compensation when compared with their male counterparts, according to a report released Monday by the Corporate Library.

Total realized pay among the CEOs analyzed by the Portland, Maine-based research outfit declined by a median of 18.5 percent for women and 6.1 percent for men in 2008. On average, women CEOs earned 58 percent of what male CEOs earned in realized compensation last year.  Realized compensation includes salary, bonuses and perquisite payments as well as value realized from option exercises and the vesting of equity shares.

Among the report’s other findings:
• male CEO bonuses were 3.5 times larger than those doled out to female CEOs, on average.
• perquisite compensation — everything from company cars to club memberships — for male CEOs was nearly twice that received by women CEOs, on average.
• the median salary for women CEOs was $40,000 more than the male CEO median.