Dive Brief:
- The commitment by U.S. companies to diversity is declining although women are still far from parity with men at all levels of the corporate pecking order, from entry level, to senior manager, to the C-suite, McKinsey said.
- Women fill 29% of C-suite positions compared to just 17% in 2015, but they are less likely than men to gain an entry-level job and to attain their first promotion to a manager role, McKinsey said after surveying 281 organizations employing more than 10 million people for an annual report on women in the workplace.
- “Though there are bright spots that suggest many companies have momentum, we also see that company commitment to diversity is declining,” McKinsey said in a report on the survey conducted with LeanIn.org. “Women’s outlook and day-to-day experiences are not much different, or are even worse, than they were nearly a decade ago.”
Dive Insight:
Other recent reports on the workplace status of women also draw a mixed picture.
Progress by women in wage gains, labor force participation and in rising to the upper tier of management has stalled in recent years, the Pew Research Center said in February. “Large gender gaps persist at the top levels of government and business leadership.”
Women increased their share of the labor force to 47% last year compared to 30% in 1950, “but growth has stagnated,” Pew said. Women will make up slightly less than half of the workforce through 2032, Pew said, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts.
Women have outnumbered men in the college-educated workforce since the fourth quarter of 2019, Pew said.
At the same time, about a third of workers in the 10 highest-paying occupations are women, an increase from 13% in 1980 but still far behind men, according to Pew.
Within U.S. corporations, women have made gains at every staff tier, McKinsey said. “Yet progress is especially fragile, especially for women of color, who continue to be underrepresented at every level and who view gender and race as obstacles to their advancement,” according to the report.
McKinsey describes how companies can remove barriers that women commonly face while attempting to rise to a managerial role, including:
Create or strengthen efforts designed to advance women. Career development and mentorship programs can level the playing field for women, a McKinsey spokesperson said, citing insights from the report.
Companies should consider requiring men to be more actively engaged, the spokesperson said, noting that men “are vital to advancing women due to their position in the workforce and in leadership roles.”
Unlock the power of managers. Companies should define the priorities of managers to include gender parity while ensuring they have the needed resources.
Managers play a critical role in promoting parity because of “their direct proximity to employees and their influence in promotion processes,” the McKinsey spokesperson said in an email response to questions.
Double-down on performance reviews. Companies should consider promoting gender parity when assessing staff performance, the spokesperson said.
“Companies that focus on core de-biasing practices — clear evaluation criteria, bias training, bias reminders and using diverse slates ³ have better outcomes in terms of representation of women,” the McKinsey spokesperson said.
