Research suggests that companies with both men and women in leadership roles outperform those with male-dominated corporate hierarchies. Although women have made modest gains in C-suite representation in recent years, one of the largest obstacles remains the critical first promotion from entry-level to management.
Everyone stands to benefit from helping women over this “broken rung” on the corporate ladder. Forward-thinking companies view the advancement of women as a business imperative. But some of the largest barriers to gender equity in leadership exist long before women enter the workforce.
This is particularly evident in the STEM fields—poised to be one of the fastest-growing segments of the American workforce over the next decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. While women now earn 58% of all college degrees, they earn just 22% of all engineering degrees, 19% of all computer science degrees, and altogether make up just over one-quarter of the broader STEM workforce.
Read the full article on Forbes.