Women in business: the path to leadership

Headline findings

We have been tracking gender diversity in business leadership over the past decade but there has been very little change in the headline figures. Today, just 22% of senior roles are held by women, compared with 19% in 2004. Almost a third of businesses have no women in their senior leadership teams, although this has fallen by 6 percentage over the past three years.

Russia sits top of the global league table with 40% of senior roles occupied by women. It is joined in the top ten by six other economies from Eastern Europe, including Georgia (38%) and Poland (37%). Japan (8%) still sits bottom of the table as it has done every year since 2004. Germany (14%) and India (15%) sit second and third last respectively.

Business leaders highlighted a range of enablers and barriers along the path to promotion. Some of the key themes to emerge were: parenthood and family care require women to make sacrifices; women are more likely to work their way up to management support positions; women are twice as likely to cite gender bias as a barrier; and men and women network differently.