The 9^th edition of the Women in Workplace report from 2023 highlights the differences in number of female versus male employees in organizations, on various career ladder positions, as seen below:

% of number of employees in 2023 – source leanin.org

The 2024 edition of the Global Gender gap report reveals the ratio 68.5%, closing the gap with only 0.1% in the past years.

From the top 10 countries with accelerated programs and policies to close the gender gap, 7 are from Europe: Iceland (93.5%), Finland (2^nd, 87.5%), Norway (3^rd, 87.5%), Sweden (5^th, 81.6%), Germany (7^th, 81%), Ireland (9^th, 80.2%) and Spain (10^th, 79.7%).

Gender gap in Project management

 

The gender gap is a real challenge in the Project management domain too as the research conducted by PMI shows in their recent Global Megatrends report from 2022: the ratio male: female Project managers is 3:1, outlining the consistent efforts for female Project managers to enter into the work environment.

Another study run by the APM shows that majority of Project management professionals in UK are male – 70%, compared to only 30% female (APM, 2023). In some of the industries, such as constructions, women Project managers are the least represented (only 12.5%), these statistics haven’t been changed in three decades.

In the Annual survey conducted in 2022, PMI revealed that the gender gap in Project management exists in all surveyed regions, as shown in the table below:

Although PMI is predicting that market needs of increased demands for new Project management professional would be reaching up to 25 millions by 2030, women still face a series of difficulties in obtaining jobs (unemployment was at a high level in Latin America due to elimination of jobs, forcing 12 million women to leave the workforce in 2021 and the overall participation in the work market was the lowest since 1988, just 57.3% for women, with very high rates for unemployment rate for black women and Latinas): stereotypes around women’s skill set and capabilities, glass ceiling for leadership roles, restricted collaborative environments, limited options for work-life balance, limited child care benefits and a more recent shift after the pandemic of the return to office policies in the detriment of remote work. 

All these are contributing to the widening of the gender gap, while women represent only 1 in 4 C-level leaders and women of colour just 1 in 16 (McKinsey, 2023): “for women, work is not just about making money, it’s also how we have a voice, how we have influence, how we grow as humans” (Susan Coleman, PMI 2022).

Gender pay gap in Project management

 

The consequences of the gender gap do not reflect only in the ratio of male-female employees, but have a direct link to the salary equity and the payment level received by male employees compared to their female peers. This rate has doubled over the past years, from 2.9% in 2022 to 6.0% in April 2024 (Westfall, 2024), so this would translate into the following: that for each dollar made by men, women are paid only 84 cents (Haan, 2024).

In the Annual Global Survey for Project management from 2022, PMI has uncovered the following statistics: women earn less than in men, depending on the industry and country/region, the difference may be more significant and the overall difference is about 20% less for women according to United Nations.

From the PMI study, there is an undisputed difference, women earning lower than men in every surveyed country, providing here couple of results per country: in United States, women earn 12% less than men, in UK 17% less, in Singapore 13% less, in France 5% less, in Germany 11% less (PMI, 2023).

The salary inequity is not necessarily derived from a lack of education or knowledge proved by certifications since the statistics for these show the following:

• 37% of women have an academic degree in project management versus 42% of men
• 72% of women have a project management certification versus 76% of men
• 57% of women have PMP certification versus 64% of men.

An explanation for the gender gap in Project management could be this exact payment disparity. 33.4% of the female respondents to the APM survey pointed out this payment inequity as one of the major barrier for women to enter the Project management profession, while 32.5% of the respondents were blaming the gender stereotyping. The same study reveals that in the UK the percentage of women earning above-average salaries has decreased from 24% to 21% in 2021.

This gender pay gap is also related to the seniority level of the roles and the access of women to higher leadership functions in organizations, which is also a component of the gender gap overall: women are covering 79% of junior roles such ‘Project Coordinator’, ‘Project Administrator’, or ‘Programme Office Support’, while 70% men are covering the senior positions such as ‘Consultant’, ‘Project Director’ or ‘PMO Director’ (APM, 2023).

How to fix the gender gap in Project management

In their study, McKinsey discussed four common myths which supposedly explain the gender gap:

• women have become less ambitious
• the biggest barrier to women’s advancement is the ‘glass ceiling’
• micro-aggressions have a small impact
• it is mostly women who want and benefit from remote work

So let’s debunk these myths, starting with the first one claiming that women have lost their ambition: women remain focused and committed to the success at every stage of their career just as much as men. In fact after the pandemic, comparing to 2019 when 70% of women expressed their desire for advancing to higher roles, now more women reaching to 80% are willing to take the next step in their career. It has been found that nine in ten women younger than 30 years old would be interested in the next level of their career, while three out of four would aim for senior leader roles.

For many decades now we keep hearing about the ‘glass ceiling’ factor which is holding back women from reaching management roles and this is happening at the very first level of manager roles: for every 100 men promoted from entry level to manager, only 87 women were promoted.

As the gender gap advances, this gap is also growing because for the past years, the attention was given to the programs addressing women who want to obtain high level of senior positions, while the lower management positions were ignored so the statistics look as following: 60% of the manager level positions are occupied by men, while women occupy the remaining 40% (McKinsey 2023).

Micro-aggressions refer to comments or actions you may need to deal with every day at the work place or another environment which are biased and harmful, even discriminatory. Because they are rooted in biased misconceptions, micro-aggressions have a negative effect on the self esteem, confidence, pride of people, and for women in particular, they are perceived as derogatory at work, even attacking women’s mental health and emotions.

Examples of micro-aggressions may be: “You aren’t like the other Black people I know”, “I know you are junior”, “I didn’t realize you were X nation — you don’t look X nation”, “Your English is so good — where are your parents from?”, “But where are you really from?”, “You don’t seem like you are depressed. Sometimes I get sad too”, “Don’t be so sensitive”, “You don’t have kids to pick up, so you can work later, right?”, etc. (Washington, 2022).

While pandemic opened up the possibility of remote work for more employees, it is not true that women take remote work for granted and do not invest the same time and commitment in their work while working remote compared to men who according to McKinsey’s study also find remote work as one of the top three benefits.

For women, the remote work offers the benefit of flexibility and possibility for child care solution (or elderly care too as more and more women state they expect to take care of somebody elderly in their families), but also act as a shield against the micro-aggressions so women have a higher level of psychological safety.

So what can organizations do to close the gender gap in project management?

In project management, it has been found that diversity leads to better business results, drives innovation, improves problem-solving, customer retention and reputation (BCG, 2022) so there are more reasons for a diverse work force and more representation of female Project managers.

Companies should focus on practices that support women and close the gender gap even starting with the hiring practices: looking for diverse work force and partnering with organizations which work with/for communities, reducing bias in the screening of resumes (APM, 2023).

Also companies should start implementing mentoring programs for matching possible future women Project managers with experienced mentors or to represent women who are affected by micro-aggression, gender stereotype in order to increase the retention of these women in their current Project managers role inside the organization.

Another initiative which organizations could undertake is providing leadership training for women Project managers to advance their career to the next level (e.g. Program director, Portfolio manager)  so that along with the increase of opportunities for women, also the leadership in organization is becoming aware of the gender gap and could support such gender diversity initiatives and help with the efforts of promoting women into higher management positions.

Overall the most important role an organization can play in increasing the gender diversity is to foster a collaborative workplace culture based on ethical and equitable practices for everybody, independent of their background, age, gender, disability, religion, culture. Such environment would support the women in Project management from the recruitment stage to performance evaluation, training opportunities, promotion and retention inside the organizations.

 

References:

1. Global Gender Gap Report 2020 – The World Economic Forum https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf
2. Global Gender Gap Report 2024 - The World Economic Forum https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-gender-gap-report-2024/
3. Global Megatrends 2022 – PMI https://www.pmi.org/learning/thought-leadership/megatrends
4. Field, E., Krivkovich, A., Kügele, S., Robinson, N. & Yee, L. (2023) Women in the workplace 2023. McKinsey https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace#
5. PMI (2023) The State of Women in Project management, https://www.pmi.org/learning/thought-leadership/women-in-project-management-2023
6. Women in the Workplace – key findings 2023 https://leanin.org/women-in-the-workplace#!
7. Association for Project management APM (2023) Women in Projects: levelling the playing field https://www.apm.org.uk/resources/find-a-resource/women-in-projects-levelling-the-playing-field/
8. Westfall, C. (2024) Forbes: Inequality Doubles In Gender Pay Gap For Women, New Survey Shows https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2024/05/14/inequality-doubles-in-gender-pay-gap-for-women-new-survey-shows/
9. Haan, K. (2024) Forbes: Gender pay statistics in 2024 https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/gender-pay-gap-statistics/
10. Washington, E.F. (2022) Recognizing and responding to micro-aggressions at work - Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2022/05/recognizing-and-responding-to-microaggressions-at-work
11. Boston Consulting Group BCG (2022) How diverse leadership teams boost innovation https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/how-diverse-leadership-teams-boost-innovation