Women are making big C-suite gains, study says — but there’s a catch
Outside the highest executive ranks, the proportion of women who hold other managerial positions has barely budged.
Women have worked up the corporate ranks and increasingly broken into the C-suite over the last decade, according to a new report. But the study by McKinsey and the group Lean In also found that women continue to lag men in both the most senior executive positions and in lower-level managerial ranks.
Women now make up almost 30% of C-suite positions, compared to only 17% in 2015, according to the study. Researchers also found that women of color remain “vastly underrepresented” in corporate America: Women of color hold only 7% of C-suite positions, while 22% are held by white women. And many women who have been promoted to positions such as chief marketing officer and chief human resources officer still haven’t made it all the way to the CEO’s office, which continues to be dominated by men.
Outside the highest executive ranks, the proportion of women who hold other managerial positions has grown by just 2 percentage points from almost a decade ago, from 37% to 39%, the study found. The number of women holding vice president and senior vice president titles has grown 7% and 6%, respectively.
While gender diversity continues to play a significant role in the hiring process, the number of employers who said that gender diversity was a high priority fell to 78% this year, from 87% in 2019, according to the study. The declines comes amidst growing pushback against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at major companies.
McKinsey, a management consultancy, teamed up with Lean In, the gender equity organization founded by former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, to produce a report about women in the U.S. workplace. For the 2024 report, researchers collected information from 281 organizations employing a total of 10 million people. They also surveyed more than 15,000 employees.
