While women hold more top jobs in companies than in the past, they are still lagging behind men on crucial early promotions into management, The Wall Street Journal reports.
That’s one of the main findings of a new, 10-year study of the roles and promotion rates of millions of workers at major North American companies.
While there were public efforts to advance women at work, most C-suite promotions placed women in positions in human resources and marketing, which don’t often lead to the CEO job. 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 just slightly more among middle managers, according to researchers at McKinsey and LeanIn.Org, the nonprofit founded by former Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg.
The study, based on the workforce data of more than 1,000 companies since 2015, marks the biggest ongoing effort to measure women’s advancement inside big companies.