Is gender parity in corporate leadership within reach, or is it still a distant reality? Despite a decade of efforts, progress remains uneven, with data offering a mixed picture.
The Women in the Workplace 2024 study by McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org highlights impressive strides alongside stubborn obstacles, while Aura's benchmarking report adds crucial industry-specific insights.
Let's explore the trends in gender disparities and whether true workforce parity is on the horizon—or if it remains an elusive goal.
Understanding Gender Parity
Gender parity refers to the equal representation of men and women across various spheres of life, including the workplace, education, and politics. Achieving gender parity is crucial for fostering gender equality and cultivating an inclusive culture. While gender equality focuses on ensuring fair treatment and equal opportunities for all individuals, gender parity specifically measures the balance of representation. In the workplace, gender parity means having an equal number of men and women in leadership positions, management roles, and other key areas of the organization. Striving for gender parity not only promotes fairness but also enhances organizational performance by leveraging diverse perspectives and talents.
Gains in Representation: Progress, but Fragile
Women in the Workplace 2024 highlights meaningful progress over the last decade. Women today make up 29% of C-suite positions, compared to just 17% in 2015, showing that women have made strides in climbing the corporate ladder and achieving leadership positions.
However, this progress remains fragile, and some of it seems to be explained away. Rachel Schall Thomas, CEO Of LeanIn, highlighted on LinkedIn that the increase in women’s representation in leadership roles may have been driven by the addition of staff positions, such as Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), which often do not lead to CEO roles.
Despite these gains, women's advancement remains hindered by persistent barriers such as gender stereotypes and segregation in senior management roles.
Meanwhile, only 7% of C-suite positions are held by women of color, with black women and Hispanic women vastly underrepresented. Gender stereotypes and gender segregation in senior management roles could remain obstacles for many.
Aura Workforce Data Graph - Overall Gender Diversity in Leadership Roles
Aura’s workforce analytics painted a similar picture, with 39% overall female leadership in 2023, representing a drop from 45% in 2022.
However, some industries are striding toward gender parity, with Healthcare reporting 56% women in leadership in 2023 and Professional Services and the Public Sector both at 46%. Sectors like Technology and Energy fell short, with women in leadership representing just 31% and 25%, respectively. This gender diversity gap in certain industries continues to be a barrier to reaching pay equity and equal pay for women in corporate America.
The Broken Rung: A Persistent Barrier to Gender Equality
Both reports emphasize the importance of early promotions for women's career advancement. Women in the Workplace 2024 identifies the "broken rung" as a critical obstacle to gender balance. For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 81 women are promoted, a slight improvement from 79 in 2018, but still insufficient to close the gender pay gaps and achieve wage parity.
This promotion gap may reinforce gender pay gaps and keep women from progressing into senior management roles. As long as promotion practices fail to offer equal opportunities, workforce parity and pay parity will remain elusive.
Aura Workforce Data Graph - Promotion by Industry
Aura's data supports this finding. In industries like Technology, where women comprise only 31% of leadership positions, promotion practices remain a bottleneck in achieving gender balance. In male-dominated industries, women remain underrepresented in senior management roles, and women’s advancement is hindered by a lack of opportunities to ascend the corporate ladder.
Women tend to be promoted at lower rates than their male counterparts, which slows progress toward gender parity in corporate America. The industry with the highest percentage of female leadership, Healthcare, also showed the highest share of promotions of females in 2024, according to Aura data.
Declining Commitment to Gender Diversity: A Concerning Trend
One of the most concerning key findings from the Women in the Workplace 2024 study is the declining corporate commitment to gender diversity. Fewer companies now rate gender diversity as a top priority compared to the same period five years ago, and career development and sponsorship programs for women have declined. This comes at a time when companies should increase their focus on retaining women and building inclusive cultures.
Aura Workforce Data Graph - Top Sectors by Workforce Diversity
In contrast, Aura’s data shows some industries making gains in women's representation, such as Retail & Consumer Goods, where women fill 48% of workers and 44% of leadership roles, with a small increase year over year as well. Retail, Public Sector, and Professional Services appear to be among the best companies in terms of fostering women's advancement.
Retaining Women: The Role of Flexible Working Arrangements and Family-Friendly Policies
Both reports highlight the challenge of retaining women in leadership roles, especially in industries where gender stereotypes and discrimination persist. The Women in the Workplace 2024 study reveals that women, particularly women of color, LGBTQ women, and women with disabilities, continue to face sexual harassment, microaggressions, and demeaning interactions.
While flexible working arrangements and family-friendly policies are becoming more common, they are not yet universal, and many women tend to leave companies that do not offer sufficient support for career development and work-life balance.
While Aura’s data doesn’t directly address flexible work arrangements, it highlights industries like Healthcare and Professional Services, where women hold more leadership positions. These sectors, with higher female leadership representation, respectively, suggest a correlation between better support structures and women’s advancement.
In contrast, industries such as Energy and Utilities, where only 28% of leadership roles are held by women, continue to show lower female representation and lower promotion rates. The data points to a broader trend: industries with better retention practices, though not explicitly identified, may be more successful in advancing women into leadership.
Economic Forces and Gender Parity
Economic forces have had a substantial impact on gender parity, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Various reports, such as the COVID-19 Brief, highlight how women were disproportionately affected by job losses and reduced working hours during the pandemic, with working women—especially women of color—bearing the brunt of these economic shifts . This exacerbated the gender pay gap, as women tend to hold a higher percentage of lower-paying jobs, which were more vulnerable to layoffs.
Aura's latest job market report found a 10% decrease in job postings and widespread worsening hiring demand among industries, which may indicate a challenging job market environment and potentially slowing macro conditions. This more difficult economic environment may also present more challenges to gender parity in the coming year, depending on the course of the overall labor market.
Reaching Workforce Parity: How Long Will It Take?
The Women in the Workplace 2024 report projects that, at the current rate of progress, it will take 22 years for white women to reach gender parity and more than 48 years for women of color. These figures suggest that workplace parity remains far off unless employers make significant changes to their promotion practices, pay equity policies, and sponsorship programs.
Aura’s industry-specific data reflects a similar workforce environment. While some industries are moving toward gender equality, the slow progress in others—particularly Technology, Energy, and Advanced Manufacturing—indicates that achieving workforce parity will take many years unless cultural change and structural improvements are made. Companies will need to invest in creating inclusive cultures that provide equal opportunities for women and men, ensuring equal pay for equal work, and addressing persistent wage gaps and promotion practices that hinder women's advancement.
Workforce Parity Is Possible, but Requires Meaningful Change
Both the Women in the Workplace 2024 report and Aura’s data suggest that workplace parity may be achievable but would require sustained commitment from corporate boards and leadership teams.
While women's representation in C-Suite roles has improved over the long term (29% of C-suite positions, compared to 17% in 2015), Aura's data showed a stagnation in general leadership representation, with a 5% decrease from 2022 to 2023. The broken rung in promotions, declining focus on gender diversity, and lack of family-friendly policies and flexible work arrangements may keep women from achieving pay parity and gender equality in the workplace.
To truly close the gender pay gap and reach wage parity, companies must address the barriers that prevent women from advancing into senior management and board-level positions. This requires meaningful change in promotion practices, career development opportunities, and inclusive cultures that allow women to thrive alongside their male counterparts. Without these changes, workforce parity will remain years away, and the global workforce will miss out on the full potential of women's talent.
