Women’s Representation Has Ups and Downs

Fifty-two women are leading Fortune 500 companies in 2024, the same number as in 2023, according to the Women Business Collaborative's Women CEOs in America report. That should be good news. However, companies are also investing less time and money in women, suggesting that it may become more difficult for women to gain positions of power in the future.

Although women today comprise 29 percent of C-suite positions compared with just 17 percent in 2015, says McKinsey & Company's Women in the Workplace 2024 report, progress has slowed. Women in entry-level positions have increased by less than 5 percent during the same period.

"Women continue to face barriers at the beginning of the pipeline," McKinsey's report explains. "They remain less likely than men to be hired into entry-level roles, which leaves them underrepresented from the start. Then, women are far less likely than men to attain their very first promotion to a manager role— a situation that's not improving."

Further, only 16 percent of companies offer formal sponsorship programs for women, an 8 percent decline from 2022. Women-focused recruiting programs have also taken a hit.

Women Business Collaborative's report notes that "Boards and business leaders must continue to push for greater diversity in the C-Suite and in the top CEO positions, for the good of the company and its stakeholders, but also for the continued efforts to achieve a more robust business environment and a just and equitable society."

Men outnumber women at every level. In 2018, for every 100 men who received their first managerial promotion, only 79 women did. This year, the number of women receiving a managerial promotion increased to 81. With that kind of slow progress, McKinsey predicts it will take almost 50 years to achieve gender equality for women in C-suite roles.