Not those women. Professional women. Times are changing for women on Wall. And according to stats compiled by the NY Times, the reason for that is because they’re damn scarce.

Bank data provided to the Times shows that women represent about 33 percent of the incoming analyst class and 25 percent of the incoming associate/MBA class. Unsurprisingly, women make up just 14 percent of the MD level…

The problem seems to be one of both numbers and career choice. According to the Times, female numbers are dwindling out of MBA programs, despite the qualitative evidence that EVERYONE you know (men and women) is going to b-school. The NYT cites Columbia, where women dropped to 34 percent of total class size in 2007, compared to 36 percent of the class in 2003, despite total growth in class size. A group that tracks top B-school graduates cites a drop in interest in Wall St. careers from women as well.

Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bros and Citigroup all have special programs in place to lure back women who have left to start families or for other reasons.

All of which sounds like it’s a mighty good time to be either applying to the top bschool programs or to a finance job if you’re a woman. Yet somehow I remain pessimistic that an industry like banking can go *soft*.

One funny thing about this article is that it cites Hank Paulson’s HBS speech as evidence that more Wall St. execs think “work-life balance should be an important element in every individual’s life.” So I guess a speech = trend. But I remain open to correction. If anyone (man or woman) has been told to go home or other evidence of work-life balance, let us know.