Description
Corporate America risks rolling back progress for women. According to this year’s Women in the Workplace study, only half of companies are prioritizing women’s career advancement, part of a several-year trend in declining commitment to gender diversity. And for the first time, there is a notable ambition gap: Women are less interested in being promoted than men. When women receive the same career support that men do, this gap in ambition to advance falls away. Yet women at both ends of the pipeline are still held back by less sponsorship and manager advocacy. This is a solvable problem, but it requires a greater investment in women’s careers at a time when a number of companies may be deprioritizing them. Some have already scaled back programs beneficial to women, such as remote work, formal sponsorship, and targeted career development, and HR leaders worry about the long-term impact of changes like these for women. Corporate America has made real progress in women’s representation over the past decade—and companies that prioritize gender diversity see bigger gains. For companies that lost focus this year, 2026 should be the year of recommitting to women in the workplace. The rest of this article summarizes the main findings from the Women in the Workplace 2025 report related to employee experience, women’s representation, company commitment and practices, and solutions (see sidebar, “About the study”).
Source
Language
English
Authors
Alexis Krivkovich, Drew Goldstein, Megan McConnell
Publication
McKinsey & Company
Date
2025
