RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Whether leading a company or seeking advancement into senior leadership roles—despite heightened awareness of the challenges facing women in the workplace driven by the COVID-19 pandemic—gender equity is still not a top priority for 70 percent of global businesses.
So says a new study from IBM published Monday in observation of International Women’s Day.
Further documenting the challenges facing women, the IBM Institute for Business Value found that fewer women surveyed hold senior vice president, vice president, director and manager roles in 2021 than they did in 2019.
“The data show that many women leaders are experiencing challenges at this moment,” said Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president, global markets, IBM and senior executive sponsor of the IBM Women’s Community in a statement. “If these issues are not addressed more deeply than in prior years, there is a risk of progress backsliding further.”
2019 vs. 2021: The pipeline of women for leadership roles has gotten smaller
IBM graphic
Women are taking over the top roles at more companies, however. “During the first quarter of 2021, 41 women will lead Fortune 500 companies. That’s just 8.2 percent, but an improvement from the 33 companies in 2019 and 24 in 2018,” according to NBC News.
The results reflect the challenges that continue to face women in the workforce, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that is having a disproportionate impact on women in the workforce. In February, NPR reported that more than 2 million American women left the workforce in 2020, while UN Women found that the pandemic will cause a 6 percent rise in unemployment among women in Latin America.
“The labor force participation rate for women 20 years and over is down 2.2 percentage points relative to February 2020, compared to a decline of 2.0 percentage points for men,” said Cecilia Rouse, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, in a blog post published by the White House Briefing Room on Friday, but this topline data masks wide variation by race.
For example, the latest jobs and employment data gathered by the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics that was released on Friday shows that the labor force participation rate is down 1.8 percentage points for black men but 4.2 percentage points for black women.
To put that in context, in February 2020, black women were only 14 percent of the female labor force, but since, one of every four female labor force dropouts has been a black woman.
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In addition, the study indicates employees surveyed feel fatigue and waning optimism over ineffective programmatic efforts to address gender equity, going so far as stating that more programs on diversity or leadership or mentoring will not be a silver bullet solution.
“We should seize creative solutions now and redouble our efforts to make meaningful, lasting change that can help all women reach their full potential,” said van Kralingen. The data from the study shows that 62% of women surveyed (down 9 percentage points from 2019 levels) and 60% of men surveyed (down 7 percentage points from 2019 levels) expect their organization will significantly improve gender parity over the next five years.
WeWork to provide 100 female-led firms with ‘All Access’ as part of Women’s Day
“More than a year into the pandemic, we’ve seen the devastating impact COVID-19 has had on people everywhere but in particular, on women,” said Lauren Fritts, the chief communications officer at WeWork in the press statement issued by the company announcing the Women For Tomorrow initiative. “It is critical we provide women-led businesses the resources they need during this challenging time.”
UNC Charlotte study: ‘Barriers’ found in academic careers, too
New research on workplace on gender inequality co-led by Jill Yavorsky, an assistant professor of sociology at UNC Charlotte, published in the social science journal Social Forces in February, indicates that fewer leadership prospects in the workplace apply even to women who show the most promise early on in their academic careers.
“Our research clearly illustrates the barriers that exist for women, especially mothers, in the workplace,” said Yavorsky in a statement shared with WRAL TechWire. “At the same time, given that even men with low grades go on to attain higher leadership roles than women, this study highlights perhaps the lack of barriers that men face in securing greater leadership opportunities.”
In one striking finding of their research, Yavorsky and her collaborator found that fathers with very low academic achievement (1.0 GPAs), on average, have similar leadership prospects to women who completed high school with 4.0 GPAs.
