Women hold less than a third of business management roles, UN says

A critical imbalance remains in the labour market with women still occupying ‌less than a third of management roles, a global survey by ‌the UN labour body showed on Tuesday. While there is a growing number of women CEOs, they hold just 30.5% of overall management posts, according to a ⁠survey by the ​International Labour ⁠Organization with data from thousands of companies across 99 countries.

This share has grown slowly ⁠from around 24% three decades ago despite significant gains in women's education, ​the ILO's senior relations specialist Jae-Hee Chang told a Geneva press conference. "There ⁠has been progress. There is a strong business case, but (women's) considerable potential remains underutilised," ⁠she said.

The ​report described a "critical imbalance" and said that there were signs that implementation of support programmes for women - such as maternity leave ⁠which have proven to be effective - was declining. It called for companies to implement ⁠steps to ⁠address structural barriers to progression and said that other factors like unequal care responsibilities outside the workplace also needed ‌to be ‌examined.