Addressing workplace gender inequality

Overview

Despite much progress in the past 50 years, workplace gender inequality remains a persistent problem.Worldwide, women only occupy about 37 per cent of leadership roles, the pay gap sits at approximately 20 per cent, and women remain concentrated in low-status, low-paid jobs. 

There are countless initiatives designed to address workplace gender equality – those that try to attract women to certain professions and roles where they are under-represented, those that try to support women's career trajectories, and those that try to retain women in the workforce. While the impetus behind these initiatives is generally positive, many of these interventions are not based on evidence, in terms of their design, their implementation or in the evaluation of their efficacy.

In this Landmark article, Professor Michelle Ryan outlines four common missteps that are made when designing and implementing workplace gender equality initiatives: 

1. When we do not go beyond describing the numbers
2. When we try to ‘fix’ women rather than fix systems
3. When we are overly optimistic about the progresswe have made; and 
4. When we fail to recognise the intersectionality of the experiences that women face.

The article considers each of these missteps in term, presenting research that suggests alternative ways of approaching gender equality initiatives.