Women in the Workplace 2018
Progress on gender diversity at work has
stalled. To achieve equality, companies must turn good intentions into concrete
action.
Companies report that they are
highly committed to gender diversity. But that commitment has not translated
into meaningful progress. The proportion of women at every level in corporate
America has hardly changed. Progress isn’t just slow. It’s stalled.
That’s what we found
in Women in the Workplace 2018, a study conducted by McKinsey in
partnership with LeanIn.Org. In the fourth year of our ongoing research, we
probe the issues, drawing on data from 279 companies employing more than 13
million people, as well as on a survey of over 64,000 employees and a series of
qualitative interviews.
Women are doing their
part. For more than 30 years, they’ve been earning more bachelor’s degrees than
men. They’re asking for promotions and negotiating salaries at the same rates
as men. And contrary to conventional wisdom, they are staying in the workforce
at the same rate as men.
Now companies need to
take more decisive action. This starts with treating gender diversity like the business priority it is, from setting targets to holding
leaders accountable for results. It requires closing gender gaps in hiring and
promotions, especially early in the pipeline when women are most often
overlooked. And it means taking bolder steps to create a respectful and
inclusive culture so women—and all employees—feel safe and supported at work.
This article presents
highlights from the full report and presents six actions that could spark
progress.
Revisiting the pipeline
Based on four years of
data from 462 companies employing more than 19.6 million people, including the
279 companies participating in this year’s study, two things are clear: one,
women remain underrepresented, particularly women of color. Two, companies need
to change the way they hire and promote entry and manager-level employees to
make real progress.
Women remain underrepresented
Since 2015, the first year of this study, corporate America has made almost no progress
improving women’s representation. Women are underrepresented at every level,
and women of color are the most underrepresented group of all, lagging behind
white men, men of color, and white women.
For the fourth year in
a row, attrition does not explain the underrepresentation of women. Women and
men are leaving their companies at similar rates, and they have similar
intentions to remain in the workforce. Over half of all employees plan to stay
at their companies for five or more years, and among those who intend to leave,
81 percent say they will continue to work. It’s also worth noting that
remarkably few women and men say they plan to leave the workforce to focus on
family.
Hiring and promotion will be crucial to progress
The two biggest drivers
of representation are hiring and promotions, and companies are disadvantaging
women in these areas from the beginning. Although women earn more bachelor’s
degrees than men, and have for decades, they are less likely to be hired into
entry-level jobs. At the first critical step up to manager, the disparity
widens further. Women are less likely to be hired into manager-level jobs, and
they are far less likely to be promoted into them—for every 100 men promoted to
manager, 79 women are (Exhibit 2). Largely because of these gender gaps, men
end up holding 62 percent of manager positions, while women hold only 38
percent.
This early inequality
has a profound impact on the talent pipeline. Starting at the manager level,
there are significantly fewer women to promote from within and significantly
fewer women at the right experience level to hire in from the outside. So even
though hiring and promotion rates improve at more senior levels, women can
never catch up—we’re suffering from a “hollow middle.” This should serve as a
wake-up call: until companies close the early gaps in hiring and promotion,
women will remain underrepresented.
If companies continue
to hire and promote women to manager at current rates, the number of women in management
will increase by just one percentage point over the next ten years. But are
companies start hiring and promoting women and men to manager at equal rates,
we should get close to parity in management—48 percent women versus 52 percent
men—over the same ten years.
Considering an uneven playing field
Many factors contribute
to a lack of gender diversity in the workplace. This year, our report took a
closer look at some of them. Beyond issues such as managerial support and
access to senior leaders, it’s interesting to look at a few areas that play a
role—including everyday discrimination, sexual harassment, and the experience
of being the only woman in the room.
Everyday discrimination
Everyday sexism and
racism, also known as microaggressions, can take many forms. Some can be
subtle, like when someone mistakenly assumes a coworker is more junior than
they really are. Some are more explicit, like when someone says something
demeaning to a coworker. Whether intentional or unintentional, microaggressions
signal disrespect. They also reflect inequality—while anyone can be on the
receiving end of disrespectful behavior, microaggressions are directed at
people with less power, such as women, people of color, and lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender, and queer people.
For almost two-thirds
of women, microaggressions are a workplace reality. Most commonly, women have
to provide more evidence of their competence than men and have their judgment
questioned in their area of expertise. They are also twice as likely as men to
have been mistaken for someone in a more junior position. Black women, in
particular, deal with a greater variety of microaggressions and are more likely
than other women to have their judgment questioned in their area of expertise
and be asked to provide additional evidence of their competence.
Lesbian women
experience further slights: 71 percent have dealt with microaggressions. The
nature of these encounters is often different for them: lesbian women are far
more likely than other women to hear demeaning remarks in the workplace about
themselves or others like them. They are also far more likely to feel like they
cannot talk about their personal lives at work.
These negative
experiences add up. As their name suggests, microaggressions can seem small
when dealt with one by one. But when repeated over time, they can have a major
impact: women who experience microaggressions view their workplaces as less
fair and are three times more likely to regularly think about leaving their
jobs than women who don’t.
Sexual harassment
Sexual harassment
continues to pervade the workplace. Thirty-five percent of women in corporate
America experience sexual harassment at some point in their careers, from
hearing sexist jokes to being touched in a sexual way.1
For some women the
experience is far more common. Fifty-five percent of women in senior
leadership, 48 percent of lesbian women, and 45 percent of women in technical
fields report they’ve been sexually harassed. A common thread connects these
groups: research has found that women who do not conform to traditional
feminine expectations—in this case, by holding authority, not being
heterosexual, and working in fields dominated by men—are more often the targets
of sexual harassment.
Ninety-eight percent of
companies have policies that make it clear sexual harassment is not tolerated,
but many employees think their companies are falling short putting policies
into practice. Only 62 percent of employees say that in the past year their
companies have reaffirmed sexual harassment won’t be tolerated, and a similar
number say that they’ve received training or guidance on the topic. Moreover,
only 60 percent of employees think a sexual-harassment claim would be fairly
investigated and addressed by their company—and just one in three believe it
would be addressed quickly.
There are also stark
differences in how women and men view their company’s efforts to create a safe
and respectful work environment. Only 32 percent of women think that
disrespectful behavior toward women is often quickly addressed by their
companies, compared with 50 percent of men. Women are far less confident that
reporting sexual harassment will lead to a fair investigation. And they are
twice as likely as men to say that it would be risky or pointless to report an
incident.
These numbers indicate
the urgent need for companies to underscore that bad behavior is unacceptable
and will not go overlooked. Leaders at all levels should set the tone by
publicly stating sexual harassment won’t be tolerated and by modeling inclusive
behavior. HR teams should receive detailed training so they know how to
thoroughly and compassionately investigate claims of harassment, even if they
involve senior leaders. And companies would benefit from putting an audit
process in place to ensure that investigations are thorough and sanctions are
appropriate.
The ‘Only’ experience
Being “the only one” is
still a common experience for women. One in five women say they are often the
only woman or one of the only women in the room at work: in other words, they
are “Onlys.” This is twice as common for senior-level women and women in
technical roles: around 40 percent are Onlys.
Women who are Onlys are
having a significantly worse experience than women who work with other women.
More than 80 percent are on the receiving end of microaggressions, compared
with 64 percent of women as a whole. They are more likely to have their
abilities challenged, to be subjected to unprofessional and demeaning remarks,
and to feel like they cannot talk about their personal lives at work. Most
notably, women Onlys are almost twice as likely to have been sexually harassed
at some point in their careers.
Far fewer men are
Onlys—just 7 percent say that they are often the only or one of the only men in
the room—and regardless of their race and ethnicity, they face less scrutiny
than women Onlys. By and large, white men who are Onlys have a better
experience than any other group of Onlys, likely because they are broadly well
represented in their company and are a high-status group in society.
Women Onlys have a more
difficult time. Because there are so few, women Onlys stand out in a crowd of
men. This heightened visibility can make the biases women Onlys face especially
pronounced. While they are just one person, they often become a stand-in for
all women—their individual successes or failures become a litmus test for what
all women are capable of doing. With everyone’s eyes on them, women Onlys can
be heavily scrutinized and held to higher performance standards. As a result,
they most often feel pressure to perform, on guard, and left out. In contrast,
when asked how it feels to be the only man in the room, men Onlys most
frequently say they feel included.
Being an Only also
affects the way women view their workplace. Compared with other women, women
Onlys are less likely to think that the best opportunities go to the most
deserving employees, promotions are fair and objective, and ideas are judged by
their quality rather than who raised them. Not surprisingly, given the negative
experiences and feelings associated with being the odd woman out, women Onlys
are also 1.5 times more likely to think about leaving their job.
Mapping a path to gender equality
The vast majority of
companies say that they’re highly committed to gender and racial diversity—yet
the evidence indicates that many are still not treating diversity as the
business imperative it is. That’s apparent in the lack of progress in the
pipeline over the past four years.
Take gender diversity
as an example. In contrast with what companies say about their commitment, only
around half of all employees think that their company sees gender diversity as
a priority and is doing what it takes to make progress. Around 20 percent of
employees say that their company’s commitment to gender diversity feels like
lip service. And few companies are making a strong business case for gender
diversity: while 76 percent of companies have articulated a business case, only
13 percent have taken the critical next step of calculating the positive impact
on their business.
There are six actions
companies need to take to make progress on gender diversity. Without action on
these fronts, the numbers will not move:
·
Get the basics
right—targets, reporting, and accountability.
·
Ensure that hiring and promotions are fair.
·
Make senior leaders and managers
champions of diversity.
·
Foster an inclusive and
respectful culture.
·
Make the Only
experience rare.
·
Offer employees the
flexibility to fit work into their lives.
We know many
companies—especially those that participate in this study—are committed and
taking action. But this year’s findings make it clearer than ever that
companies need to double down on their efforts. This report includes concrete,
evidence-based steps that companies can take right now that will make a major
difference. We hope companies seize this opportunity. We can’t get to equality
until they do.
By Alexis
Krivkovich, Marie-Claude
Nadeau, Kelsey Robinson, Nicole Robinson, Irina Starikova, and Lareina Yee
https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/gender-equality/women-in-the-workplace-2018?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck-1810&hlkid=0134406f963242baa045f1839008cbf3&hctky=1627601&hdpid=da56a402-2503-4788-8510-68900bb2e87c
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