Women’s Career Advancement Hampered by Initial Promotion Obstacles, Not Just the Glass Ceiling
In 1978, Marilyn Loden, a human resources executive, participated in a Women’s Exposition panel in New York City, discussing women’s career aspirations. While the discussion largely focused on how women should adapt to succeed, Loden contended that structural barriers were the real issue hindering their progress. She introduced the concept of an “invisible glass ceiling” impeding their ambitions and opportunities. Since then, the image of a glass ceiling at the top of the corporate ladder has become a common symbol of the challenges women face in reaching leadership positions.
Moving forward from Loden’s time to the 1990s, women’s presence in the workforce was at an all-time high. In response, the U.S. Congress formed the Glass Ceiling Commission to examine obstacles to their advancement. The commission reported that women held only 3% to 5% of senior leadership roles in Fortune 500 companies. Consequently, many organizations began prioritizing increasing the number of women in these top-tier positions.
Progress has been gradual but consistent. In the three decades since the Glass Ceiling Commission’s report, women’s representation in the C-suite has risen from 3-5% to 29%. While still far from equal, this represents progress. In the U.S., between 2012 and 2022, women’s C-suite representation increased by 10 percentage points, which translates to roughly one more direct report to the CEO in a 10-person team. However, the very top remains difficult to penetrate: in 2023, women accounted for just over 10% of Fortune 500 CEOs, 9% of FTSE CEOs, and 5.4% of CEOs in the S&P Global Broad Market Index.
One crucial, often overlooked, factor in promoting women’s advancement is addressing the obstacle that affects them early in their careers: the broken rung. Although the glass ceiling persists, many women start lagging behind their male colleagues well before reaching that level.
Our research indicates that women entering the workforce have significantly lower chances of securing their first managerial role compared to men. Moreover, when they do achieve that initial promotion, it often occurs later in their careers. In the U.S., for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 87 women receive the same opportunity. This disparity has remained remarkably consistent over the past decade, showing minimal improvement.
The broken rung phenomenon often continues through the manager and director levels, preventing women from catching up. Across more than 1,000 U.S. companies surveyed over five years, women held an average of 48% of entry-level positions but only 37% of director-level positions, a mid-level of seniority. This indicates a significant number of women stalling or leaving the corporate workforce. At senior levels, women’s representation hovers just below 30%, a significant drop from the parity they experienced in college or at the start of their careers. Women’s representation is halved between the entry-level and the C-suite.
Similar trends are observed globally. Norway, Australia, and Sweden lead with 24% to 27% female representation in senior leadership. The UK stands at 18%, and France at 13%. Brazil, Germany, and Mexico lag behind with 8% women (although Germany is improving due to quotas), followed by India at 5% and Japan at 3%.
Every rung on the ladder presents challenges for women, especially women of color, as they navigate the corporate pipeline. However, the first rung has the most significant impact on both individual women and organizations. An eight-percentage-point drop so early in the pipeline makes it nearly impossible to close the gap, with compounding effects at each subsequent level.
Missing the initial promotion to manager impacts an individual’s entire career path, particularly in acquiring valuable skills and experiences. The decrease in female representation at each level further reduces the pool of women eligible for promotion, leaving few with a chance to even reach the glass ceiling.
To make matters worse, the broken rung is often overlooked by leadership. Despite positive intentions among many CEOs, managers, and HR executives to support women, gaps persist in implementation. Over half of HR leaders believe their organization will achieve gender parity within 10 years. However, the UN estimates that, at the current rate, it will take 140 years to achieve equal representation in leadership worldwide.
Optimistically, the problem and solution are two sides of the same coin. Promoting women and men to management at equal rates would create a powerful domino effect, increasing representation throughout the pipeline. This would lead to a larger pool of women available for promotion and hiring at each subsequent level.
While achieving equality would still take time, fixing the first broken rung could bring women close to parity within a generation. This would also help companies retain ambitious, talented women and create mentors and leaders at all levels for young women to learn from and emulate.
In essence, we must address parity in leadership from the bottom up, not just from the top down.
Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Excerpted from by Kweilin Ellingrud, Lareina Yee, and María del Mar Martínez. Copyright 2025 McKinsey & Company, Inc. United States. All rights reserved.