Proportion of women amongst managerial positions

What proportion of women amongst managerial positions in European start-ups & scale-ups?

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Verdict?

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This graph is, an interesting illustration of the glass ceiling effect.

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Reminder: “A glass ceiling is a metaphor used to represent an invisible barrier that prevents a given demographic (typically applied to women) from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy.”

Beyond the numbers, do you know what we found quite alarming?

If you google “what companies can do to break the glass ceiling effect”, the first 3 results are:

• Breaking the Glass Ceiling - Career Skills
• How Women Can Break The Glass Ceiling?
• Breaking the Glass Ceiling: 4 Ways Through the Invisible Barrier

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As if the responsibility was on women to improve to “break through the barrier”. It’s not!

It’s on the companies, and their leaders, to find ways to fix this. Not on women to "network better", "volunteer for a high-level project", or "create an action plan"

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Now, the representation of women in management is the basis of our “Gender-Equality Score”.

It’s pretty simple: you get a perfect 100% if at least 50% of your managers are women ✅

For each % below 50% however, you get 2% deducted. Only 25% of your managers are women? 50% score

And yes, 80% of your management roles being held by women still means a 100% score. We think that we should not penalize companies who are tipping the scales the opposite way.

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There’s a simple catch, however: we give more weight as we go “up the management ladder”: you can’t have a great score by having a high % of women in the first management levels and none amongst your executive roles.

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Want to discover your Gender-Equality score, and how it would rank amongst your peers? Get in touch!

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