A Decade After ‘Lean In,’ Progress for Women Isn’t Trickling Down

Efforts to advance women at work have spurred gains in corporate C-suites but little change at the critical early stages of careers, a 10-year study finds

Women hold more of the top jobs in companies than ever before, but they lag behind men on crucial early promotions into management—holding them back from greater power at work.

That’s one of the central findings of a new, 10-year study of the roles and promotion rates of millions of women and men at major North American companies. After all the public efforts to advance women at work, most C-suite promotions put women in positions, like human-resources and marketing, that don’t lead to the CEO job. Now as company programs designed to diversify workforces face questions about fairness, sustaining the progress could get tougher.

The share of women in the lowest—and much larger—managerial ranks has grown by just 2 percentage points from a decade ago, to 39% from 37%, and slightly more among middle managers, according to researchers at McKinsey and LeanIn.Org,

“The ability to grow talent from the entry-level up to senior leadership is one of the most fundamental challenges companies still haven’t gotten their hands around,” said Lareina Yee, a senior partner at McKinsey.

The number of employers who said gender diversity was a high priority fell to 78% this year from 87% in 2019, according to the study—consistent with a broader pushback against corporate diversity programs. Gender-focused recruiting initiatives fell by nearly a third from 2022. So did the share of companies offering sponsorship programs aimed at helping rising female talent find senior executives who can champion them for bigger roles.

Research shows those sponsorship opportunities for women make a big difference, Yee says. With companies backtracking, she asks: “How do you think that’s going to go?”

That the gender gap in workplaces persists “shows it’s going to take a very concerted effort to fix it,” former Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg says. “Women are doing their part, and we need companies to do their part.”

The biggest change has occurred at the top, where the population of women in the C-suite rose to 29% from 17% in 2015, while the share of women of color climbed to 7%. Many of those senior women have been elevated in so-called staff roles…

The Lean In and McKinsey data show women tend to fall behind men in their career progress at the very first promotion opportunity. About eight women get their first promotion to manager for every 10 men—virtually the same rate they did in 2018. Promotion rates for women of color—which briefly surged as companies redoubled racial-diversity commitments after George Floyd’s 2020 murder—are worse than for white women.

That may be one reason a Census Bureau report last week showed women working full time experienced 1.5% in median-income gains last year, half the increase for men.

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