Since 2015, McKinsey & Company, in partnership with LeanIn.Org, has published an annual study on the state of women in corporate America. Women in the Workplace is the largest report of its kind, including diverse interviews with women of color, LGBTQ+ women, and women with disabilities from over 1,000 companies and 480,000 people over the years.
In this special 10th-anniversary edition, this report uses data from the past decade to analyze the progress, decline, and stagnation in women’s representation. With over 12.38 million people in the U.S. employed by eating and drinking establishments (courtesy of the National Restaurant Association), companies in the industry must use these insights and gather tools to advance gender diversity, from inside their restaurants to the top of their corporate leadership structures.
A 10-year look at women’s representation
In the past decade, women have gained traction at every level of the corporate pipeline, particularly in senior leadership roles, particularly in the C-suite, where they make up 29 percent compared to 17 percent in 2015.
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However, progress has been much slower at the entry and manager levels, with only a 3 percent and 2 percent increase in the past decade, respectively. This bottleneck is coined as the “broken rung,” where women are less likely than men to be hired into entry-level roles and promoted to managers, leaving them underrepresented from the beginning of their careers. According to the report, this gap will make it “impossible for companies to support sustained progress at more senior levels.”
Women of color remain severely underrepresented in corporate America. While they have experienced larger gains in the past several years, they have a long way to go in reaching parity—for example, women of color hold just 7 percent of C-suite roles, compared to white women’s 22 percent. Their representation falls off relative to white employees and men of color at every level, with the greatest drop in representation happening at the first promotion to manager. Black women’s promotion rates in 2024 have regressed to 2020 levels.
In 2024, Latinas faced their worst broken rung, being the most underrepresented at the beginning of their careers when compared to their population in the workforce. Asian women have experienced the greatest improvements early in their careers, but face more challenges later on: alongside Latinas, they have the lowest promotion rates from director to vice president.
In senior leadership roles, progress is unsustainable. Gains at the vice president and senior vice president levels were driven by a reduction in the number of line roles (positions with a focus on core operations). Because men held more line roles, they were impacted disproportionately.
In the C-suite, the reduction of roles wasn’t the only reason why representation increased. Companies added more staff roles (positions in functions that support the organization) and were more likely to hire a woman to fill them. However, according to the report, because companies cannot add new staff roles indefinitely, this path to parity is unviable.
Despite making progress in the past decade, parity for all women is almost 50 years away if companies maintain their current rate of progress. To maintain this, according to the report, companies must fix the broken rung in their pipeline, invest more energy in developing women leaders, and hold themselves accountable for creating more sustainable progress in the C-suite.
A 10-Year Look at Company Practices
The U.S. has come a long way in the past decade to make the workplace more equitable. Most would agree that women have more opportunities to advance than ever before, with increased efforts to de-bias hiring and performance reviews, prioritizing inclusion, and investing in training employees to practice allyship. Offering flexibility and support for caregivers, employees with health issues, and parents is now the norm in many companies.
Experts recommend the following core practices to make the greatest strides in advancing women, centered around hiring and performance reviews: develop clear evaluation criteria, offer bias training and reminders for evaluators, and use diverse slates of similarly qualified candidates for positions.
Only about one in three companies have a mechanism for rooting out biased performance evaluations, and just one in 10 remove identifying candidate information from resumes or work samples. These two levers, hiring and performance reviews, have the greatest impact on the career pipeline, so given the presence of weak spots and the broken rung, it is clear more work needs to be done.
Fewer companies are investing in career development and sponsorship programs for women and women of color. According to the data, company efforts aimed at activating employees and driving the culture of change have not translated into enough meaningful action. A minority of companies track the outcomes of their programs, especially by race; for example, only 37 percent of companies track the success of their career development initiatives by gender, compared to 31 percent by race.
From 2022 to 2024, the amount of formal mentorship programs has dropped from 48 percent to 37 percent (for all women), and 25 percent to 15 percent (for women of color). Sponsorship, career development, internship, and recruiting programs have also seen a staggering multi-point decline, some by almost half. Internship initiatives for women of color now stand at just 8 percent, compared to 14 percent in 2022.
Career advancement and fostering a culture of inclusion and empowerment falls on the shoulders of managers. When done right, employees are less burned out, happier, and less likely to leave the organization. However, despite increased manager training and communicated priorities on the company’s behalf, it is not translating into better manager performance. One possible explanation is that while companies are asking managers to do more to support their employees, only 37 percent of them reward managers for effectively managing employee career development—this is compared to 92 percent of managers being rewarded for delivering on business objectives.
Despite increased inclusion efforts, employee behavior has remained stagnant. Less than half of employees take key allyship actions, like mentoring or sponsoring women of color or taking a stand for racial equity. Addressing microaggressions remains remains a top priority.
A majority of employees see progress in inclusion efforts and women’s opportunities, especially when it comes to work-life benefits. In 2024, 96 percent of companies offer paid maternity leave, and 93 percent offer paternity leave, compared to 62 and 48 percent in 2015. There is an additional upward trend in other support for parents, such as emergency childcare, and support for employees navigating illness and loss.
In response to the pandemic, 92 percent of companies offer remote/hybrid work options, resulting in 83 percent of women saying flexibility in the workplace has improved. This is a critical factor for women, who the report states “have more focused time to get their work done when working remotely.”
While there is positive momentum in this regard, the declining commitment to diversity in the workplace is problematic. The stagnation of managers’ and employees’ behavior reveals the importance of company-wide education and engagement—especially for men, whose commitment to gender and racial diversity at both levels of the corporate ladder has declined since 2019. Only 44 percent of male employees say gender diversity is a high priority, with this number dropping to 38 percent for younger men under 30, a gap that has widened by a 10-point decrease since 2019.
Company commitment to gender diversity has dropped from 87 percent to 78 percent since 2019, and from 77 percent to 69 percent when it comes to race. During these critical times, this is concerning as we look to the future.
A 10-Year Look at Women’s Experiences
In the 10 years of this study, women’s day-to-day experiences have not changed much since 2015, the area of least progress. Despite increases in representation and company efforts, women still worry if it will be harder for them to advance because of their gender, race, and age. However, they remain fiercely ambitious and committed to their roles. Here are some key findings in women’s experiences in the workplace:
- Younger women are twice as likely (42 percent) as older women (21 percent) to say their gender will make it harder for them to advance. Forty-nine percent of women under 30 say ageism has negatively impacted them at work, compared to 38 percent of women over 60. More young women experience ageism than their younger male counterparts, whereas it similarly affects older men and women.
- Seven in 10 women want to be promoted to the next level this year, the same as men. Younger women are more ambitious, with more than eight in 10 seeking a promotion.
- 61 percent of Black women, 29 percent of Latinas, and 39 percent of Asian women believe their race has hurt their career opportunities, increasing across the board since 2018.
Women of color are less likely to get support from their managers, thus impacting their ability to be promoted or navigate work challenges. They stand to benefit the most from mentorship, sponsorship, and career development programs but have the least amount of access to them.
Women’s performance and competence are often judged more harshly. Research reveals that men are promoted based on their perceived potential, while women are promoted based on what they’ve already accomplished. Because the current pipeline disadvantages women in the early stages of their careers, this biased thinking is particularly harmful.
Microaggressions in the workplace for women are higher than their male counterparts, especially for women of color, women with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ women. Since 2019, there has been little to no progress in decreasing competence-based and “othering” microaggressions, which can erode their sense of belonging and create a harmful work environment. 60 percent of women are 2.7x more likely to consider leaving their company due to microaggressions.
Seventeen percent of all women are an “Only”—meaning one of the only people of their race or gender in the room at work. They are more likely to feel left out, under more pressure to perform, and on guard, experiencing additional microaggressions. This statistic has not changed since 2018.
Sexual harassment levels have not improved since 2018, either, sitting at 35 percent in 2018 compared to 37 percent in 2024. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reports that the restaurant industry accounts for the largest percentage of sexual harassment claims, making this especially concerning.
A Data-Driven Approach to Solutions
So, what can companies do to strengthen the fragility of progress in the pipeline to support women’s advancement? The study says deep, systematic change is necessary—a restructuring of mindsets and behaviors—but this is difficult and requires creativity, rigor, and optimism.
McKinsey & Company, in collaboration with LeanIn.Org, has put together a best practices checklist for companies to identify gaps in their offerings and push further in their diversity efforts. In addition to this list of key policies and programs, research shows there are four building blocks to creating a sustainable track for women’s advancement. While companies may implement one or two practices, they must follow all four pillars and ensure the right fundamentals are in place. These include:
- Making sure employees understand why a new practice is important
- Teaching employees the skills they need to do their part
- Putting mechanisms in place to support the practice
- Ensuring leaders role model the right behaviors
Additional steps are:
- De-bias the hiring and promotions processes
- Inspire and equip employees to curb bias and practice allyship
- Unlock the power of managers to influence careers and team culture
Changing the culture of work requires changing employees’ hearts and mindsets. It can look like many things, including linking efforts to advance women in the company’s core values, making emotional connections with employees, celebrating wins, and being transparent about the challenges of change. Inclusion messages must be delivered from all rungs of the organization, through a variety of channels, including a feedback loop with employees.
The importance of male allyship cannot be overstated. Men not only make up at least half of the workforce, but they also hold a majority of leadership positions. Through allyship groups, activating senior-level men, and educating them on the benefits of women’s advancement for all, men have the unique opportunity to drive real progress within organizations. Men in leadership positions can help fill the sponsorship gap and accelerate careers, but they need to be guided on how to support women effectively and avoid affinity bias, which leads them to sponsor others like themselves.
Managers also have the unique and powerful opportunity to impact women’s experiences in the workforce. By aligning their priorities and rewards, ensuring they have the time and resources to succeed, and hosting open dialogues on new policies and practices, managers feel seen and heard, thus unlocking their full potential to develop their teams.
The full Women in the Workplace report can be found here.
