Women achieving parity at entry level jobs, but are not being promoted: study

A study released by consulting firm McKinsey and Co. on Tuesday shows that women are closer to gender parity in entry-level positions, but progress is stagnant at senior levels.

Ten years into her banking career, Karlyn Percil-Mercieca realized she had taken on extra responsibilities over the years and decided to push for more, when a promotion came up.

“All of a sudden, I wasn’t qualified anymore. It was like you’re qualified until you’re not,” said Percil-Mercieca, a Toronto woman originally from St. Lucia.

She stayed in the industry for roughly another decade, thinking “If I work harder, if I apply myself more, something will change,” but eventually microaggressions at the office and frustrations with how women weren’t supported pushed her to leave and start her own consultancy business.

“When you step away, you realize you’re actually fighting a systemic gender barrier, a structural barrier that is so ingrained in our corporate workplace culture. That is not always easy to notice or to navigate,” she said.

Percil-Mercieca’s experience is reflected in a new study showing women are still under-represented throughout the talent pipeline and there remains a “broken rung” that makes being promoted difficult.

The study released by data consulting firm McKinsey and Co. on Tuesday shows that although women are one per cent away from achieving gender parity in entry-level positions, progress remains stagnant at more senior levels.

Women held 49 per cent of entry-level positions last year, up from 45 per cent in 2017. At the manager and senior manager levels, that falls to 37 and 35 per cent, respectively.

Companies appear to be hiring a similar number of men and women for junior positions, but women’s representation drops by 12 percentage points when management positions are involved — the largest decline from one level to the next throughout the pipeline. Between the manager level and the C-suite, the representation of women falls by another seven percentage points, with women holding 30 per cent of C-suite roles.