Women CEOs in America are paid less, have shorter tenures and their companies are punished in the stock market, even when their firms are just as profitable as those run by men, according to new research from Florida State University (FSU).

In addition, women CEOs are less likely to serve as board chair of their companies, and they have a much tougher time landing the top job because there is significantly less demand for their leadership compared to men.

New research published today in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, identifies a number of factors that hinder female CEOs and CEO candidates.

The study also provides practical ideas for young women who hope to become a CEO someday, such as pursuing early and fast promotions because, as their research shows, women who do break through to become CEOs are often younger with fewer years of experience than men.

"This research should be eye-opening to people, and I hope they take a closer look," said Michael Holmes, FSU's Jim Moran Associate Professor of Strategic Management.

Holmes and Assistant Professor of Management Gang Wang conducted a study focusing on the influence of gender on CEOs' careers. The business management experts pored over 158 previous studies investigating gender, companies' hiring choices, and the impact of those decisions.

One of the key findings reveal only 5.4 percent of Fortune 500 companies had female CEOs in 2017, and that figure was the all-time high in the United States.

"The situation for women leaders is probably worse than you think right now," Holmes said. "Many women who become CEOs are absolute rock stars. They have graduated from elite schools and risen through the corporate ranks faster, but they get paid less, are less likely to be a firm's board chair, have shorter tenures in the job and are more likely to lead distressed firms. We wondered, 'What's going on here?'"

Wang and Holmes conducted their research over two and a-half years and the study identifies a number of factors that hinder female CEOs and CEO candidates among stock market investors, corporate boards, managers, and more generally, across American culture.

The FSU research also notes the hiring process for CEOs can be influenced by gender-role stereotypes. In American culture, as well as many countries worldwide, the perceived traits of a good leader, such as aggressiveness and risk-taking, are generally seen as masculine qualities.

"Because of that bias, men have advantages obtaining and succeeding in leadership positions, while women leaders are more likely to be disliked and viewed as socially inept, due to the perceived role incongruity," the researchers wrote in the paper.

According to Wang and Holmes, more women choose to leave the workforce for a variety of reasons, including family changes, lack of career advancement or perhaps outright discrimination.

Wang and Holmes also documented a clear bias in the stock market against women CEOs. When they used accounting metrics to compare companies with similar financial results, for example, profits, firms run by women CEOs experienced worse stock performance than those led by men.

"Women have come a long way in the workforce in terms of their overall numbers and acceptance, but when it comes to stock market investors evaluating a CEO and a company that they don't know, I think investors may subconsciously discount that firm because the leader is female versus male," Holmes said. "It seems when investors take an overall look at firms, biases creep in, and people may not even be aware of them."

The research team believes too many women either have been pushed out of careers or opted out because they faced an uneven playing field.

"These women have earned their place at the top," Holmes said. "But the data shows things are different for women -- the workforce does not offer a level playing field.

"I hope when people read the research, they have some 'aha' moments with the findings, as well as the explanations. By showing these firms perform the same as companies led by male CEOs, let's get beyond the idea that women can't be good leaders. Clearly, they are good leaders. They often just aren't rewarded equally."

Rich Devine and John Bishoff, former FSU doctoral students, contributed to this research.