Women at work · Seven topics
Each topic follows the same steps: the question, what research reports, what it can't tell us, a question for you, and a possible response to examine. Each note identifies its source and what has been checked. Summary-based findings are labelled as such; unresolved figures are withheld.
These figures describe groups of women. They never diagnose one woman, one employer, or a legal question.
What happens to a woman’s concern after she raises it?
In Deloitte’s 2025 survey of 7,500 women in 15 countries, 34% said they had experienced non-inclusive behaviour at work in the past year. Only one in 10 believed action would be taken if they reported it.
What it can't tell us: what organizations actually do when concerns are reported, or anything about a specific employer.
A question for you: When you’ve raised something before, what came back, and how long did it take?
A possible response to examine: Acknowledge every concern, name who owns it, and report back by a set date, even when the answer is no.
Where does the pipeline narrow?
In the 2025 McKinsey and LeanIn.Org study of 124 organizations, women held 49% of entry-level roles, 42% of manager roles, 39% of senior manager or director roles, 35% of vice president roles, 32% of senior vice president roles and 29% of C-suite roles. These are shares of roles, not promotion chances.
What it can't tell us: why the share falls at each step, or any one woman’s chances of promotion.
A question for you: At your level, is the standard for the next step written down, or is it a judgment?
A possible response to examine: Define promotion criteria in advance and check who gets the work that leads to promotion.
Who gets a sponsor, and what difference does it make?
At senior manager or director level, 63% of women and 67% of men reported having a sponsor. At vice president and above, 66% of women and 72% of men did. Men with sponsors reported promotion rates over the previous two years 2.0 times those of men without; for women, the ratio was 1.7. (McKinsey and LeanIn.Org, 2025.)
What it can't tell us: that sponsorship alone caused the difference.
A question for you: Who speaks for you in the rooms where promotions are decided?
A possible response to examine: Make sponsorship visible and accountable rather than informal. See the fictional director-to-vice-president example.
What does she need to know before stepping into the top roles?
In the same 2025 study, women held 29% of C-suite roles in participating companies. Wider global figures on women managers, board seats and chief executives are being checked against their original sources before they’re published here.
What it can't tell us: anything about leadership in companies outside the study.
A question for you: Which decisions, budget and people would come with the role, and what would stay with someone else?
A possible response to examine: Match responsibility with the decision rights and resources to carry it.
When a woman is offered leadership in a crisis, what is she being handed?
A 2020 meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin (Morgenroth, Kirby, Ryan and Sudkämper) found evidence consistent with the glass cliff: women were more likely to be selected for leadership in crisis situations. The effects were small and varied by setting and study design. (Summary checked from the published abstract, not the full paper.)
What it can't tell us: whether any one difficult appointment is a glass cliff.
A question for you: What support, time and resources come with the role, in writing?
A possible response to examine: Set out the resources and the timeline for judging success before the appointment.
Is she being invited to use AI, or left to work it out alone?
Among entry-level respondents in the 2025 McKinsey and LeanIn.Org study, 21% of women and 33% of men said their managers encouraged them to use AI tools.
What it can't tell us: anything about women’s ability or willingness to use AI.
A question for you: Has anyone at work invited you to use AI for your job, or shown you how?
A possible response to examine: Check who is being encouraged, given access and trained, not only who is using the tools. Try the public-document exercise.
Why do women who trained in engineering and science leave it?
Global figures on women’s share of STEM graduates and STEM jobs are being confirmed against their original UNESCO sources before they’re published here. The questions below don’t depend on those figures.
What it can't tell us: until a figure is checked against its source, it doesn’t go on this page.
A question for you: Who gets credit for your technical work? Who assigns the meaningful projects? Who makes the final technical call? Is it the work you’d leave, or the conditions around it?
A possible response to examine: Ask the women who stayed and the women who left, separately.
Sources
For the full list of reports and data, see Resources.
McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org, Women in the Workplace 2025 (124 organizations, about 3 million employees; survey of about 10,000 employees).
Deloitte, Women @ Work 2025: A Global Outlook (7,500 women in 15 countries, surveyed October 2024 to January 2025).
Morgenroth, T., Kirby, T. A., Ryan, M. K., and Sudkämper, A. (2020). The who, when, and why of the glass cliff phenomenon. Psychological Bulletin.
Ways to take part
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A free way for women to add their experience to the research. Being planned. Please don't send private workplace accounts yet.
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If you're part of a women's organization, union, professional association, research group or policy role and see a connection, I'd be glad to talk. Please don't send confidential workplace accounts through a general inquiry.