The workplace gender gap is alive and well

I’ve been doing a lot of work recently with young people in the business world, particularly young women. One of the issues that keeps coming up is the gender gap and how it plays out in the workplace. While there have certainly been advances in closing the gap, we do know that the gap is very real and that workplace challenges remain different according to gender.

Not long ago, the Harvard Business School surveyed some 25,000 of their MBA graduates. These are the best and the brightest who are likely to assume positions of responsibility in the business world. Four major findings from the study show that while there has been progress, the gender gap refuses to die.

While men and women start out with similar career goals, men are more likely to achieve them. Men are more likely to reach positions of greater authority and responsibility. Men are much more likely to have a significant number of direct reports and to have responsibility for a company’s profit and loss. Even today, women hold less than 5 percent of chief executive officer positions in the Fortune 100 companies and account for only 20 percent of all board seats in those firms. Women also were consistently less satisfied with their careers.

Contrary to some other studies, the Harvard study found that few women were opting out of the workplace in favor of family responsibilities. Both men and women reported that women advance more slowly because they are seen to prioritize family over career. Most women in the study who reported taking time off to have and care for children also reported difficulty in returning to the workplace. Many reported being “mommy tracked,” and put into jobs with less responsibility and less opportunity for advancement to senior level positions.

One surprising finding of the study had to do with career expectations between spouses. More than 50 percent of the men expect that their career will take precedence over their partners and usually this is the case. However, more than 95 percent of the women surveyed expect their career to be just as important as their partner’s. No wonder women often report being disappointed.

Women also report significantly more issues in finding compatibility between work and family. While work/life balance is an issue for both men and women, women often felt more pressure

The study covered all generations in the workplace, boomers to millennials, late 60s to early 30s. Despite increasing numbers of women with both the experience and credentials to assume top jobs, the gender gap is alive and well across generations and across all industries and institutions. We have to do more. We have to do better. Food for thought.

This story was originally published November 22, 2016 at 4:49 PM with the headline "The workplace gender gap is alive and well."