The real reasons there are so few women leaders
Image: REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale
Stay up to date:
Davos Agenda
There’s been plenty of research to prove that diversity in the workplace makes business sense: McKinsey, for example, has found that gender-diverse companies outperform others financially by 15%; ethnically diverse ones do so by as much as 35%.
And yet across many industries, there is still a big gap between the number of men and women in the workplace – particularly further up the leadership ladder. What’s going on?
Theories abound. For Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer and author of Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, women hold themselves back in different ways, jeopardizing their prospects for promotion. Anne-Marie Slaughter points to workplace cultures, which have yet to adapt to the dual role many women - and men - play as both workers and caregivers.
As part of a new report, The Future of Jobs, the Forum spoke with hundreds of chief human resource officers from more than 350 leading companies to find out what’s really to blame for the dearth of female leaders. They pointed to several causes.
Across all industries, almost half of respondents – 44% – said that both unconscious bias among managers and a lack of work-life balance were significant barriers to gender diversity in the workplace. Almost as many – 39% – pointed to a lack of female role models. Although women now outnumber men at university, and graduate in higher numbers, 36% of respondents still said there weren’t enough qualified women for the positions they’re looking to fill. Only 6% blamed a lack of parental leave, and 10% said there were no barriers.
While the report’s findings might be frustrating for those pushing for gender equality at work, there is some good news: most respondents predict that the more gender balanced composition of today’s junior roles will be reflected in mid-level roles by 2020, and that the gender breakdown of today’s mid-level roles will similarly carry through to senior roles.
Have you read?
It's official: women on boards boost boost business
4 forces that are holding women back
Who are the women of Davos 2016?
The Annual Meeting is taking place in Davos from 20 to 23 January, under the theme “Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution”.
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
The Agenda Weekly
A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda
You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.
More on Forum InstitutionalSee all
Mahmoud Mohieldin and Manuela Stefania Fulga
October 3, 2024
Swenja Surminski and Nicholas Faull
October 2, 2024
Caspar Herzberg
October 1, 2024
Linda Lacina and Pooja Chhabria
September 27, 2024
Pooja Chhabria and Chris Hamill-Stewart
September 27, 2024
Vincent Martinez
September 27, 2024