Over the past decade, women have made gains at every stage of the corporate pipeline particularly in senior leadership, but progress is fragile and at risk, especially for women of color, according to a major study on women in corporate America and Canada.
The 10th annual Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org, finds that women today hold 29% of C-suite positions, up from 17% in 2015. However, progress is not the same as parity and based on the current rate of progress, it will take decades to achieve gender parity for all women in corporate America, the report noted.
While women overall have made gains, women of color represent only 7% of C-suite positions, and have been mostly left behind, the report said. White men are most represented at every level of leadership, while either Black women, Asian women, or Latinas are least represented.
In fact, Latinas are the most underrepresented group in the C-suite. Latinas are 9.6% of the population, yet they are only 1.4% of the C-suite. At the current rate, it will take women of color 48 years —or two generations— to reach parity and white women 22 years.
Against the backdrop of this sobering report, the New Jersey Women Business Leaders Forum, powered by NJBIA, will bring hundreds of professional women together for a two-day conference in Atlantic City on Sept. 25-26 to inspire and empower the building of successful businesses and to increase diversity in corporate leadership, both in the C-suite and the boardroom. For more information about the speakers, agenda and activities associated with this event, go to the 2024 WBLF registration page here.
The ‘Broken Rung’
Women still face the same early-career headwinds they did a decade ago and continue to enter the workforce at a disadvantage, the report said. Then, at the first critical step up to manager, women are far less likely to get promoted—and this is not improving. The report found:
- Women continue to experience the “broken rung”—a phenomenon where entry-level men are promoted to manager at much higher rates than women. This causes women to fall behind early in their careers and they never catch up.
- In 2018, for every 100 men who received the first promotion to manager, 79 women received the same opportunity. Today, that number is 81.
- It is even worse for women of color. For every 100 men promoted to manager, just 54 Black women (down to 2020 levels) and 65 Latinas (the lowest since McKinsey began this research) received the same opportunity.
- Black women’s representation drops dramatically—by nearly two-thirds—from entry-level to director.
Corporate Actions
Companies have implemented more practices to make hiring and performance reviews fair. However, the persistence of the “broken rung” phenomenon points to the need for companies to take bolder steps. The report notes that companies are also investing fewer resources into women’s advancement—offering fewer mentorship, sponsorship, internship, and recruitment programs geared toward women. The report notes:
- 16% of companies offer formal sponsorship programs with specific content for women (down from 24% in 2022); for women of color, it is 8% (down from 16% in 2022).
- 34% offer recruiting programs and 11% offer internship programs focused on women (down from 48% and 24% in 2022).
Additionally, while companies have greatly expanded work-life benefits, such as parental leave, medical benefits for fertility treatments and adoption or surrogacy, corporate commitment to gender diversity has been waning. For example, 78% of companies say gender diversity is a high priority in 2024 (down from 87% in 2019) and 69% say racial diversity is a high priority (down from 77% in 2019). For this reason, the report concludes that despite the gains women have made, that progress is fragile and unsustainable against a backdrop of declining commitment to gender and racial diversity.
About The 10th Annual Women in the Workplace Report
The McKinsey research is based on data and insights from 1,000 participating companies and more than 480,000 people surveyed on their workplace experiences between 2015 and 2024. This year’s 63-page edition draws on data collected from over 280 companies employing over 10 million people. More than 15,000 employees were surveyed including interviews with people of diverse identities, including women of color, LGBTQ+ women, and women with disabilities, to gain insights on the unique barriers faced by women.
