Why We Keep Losing Women Leaders (And What the Data Says We Must Fix)
The current corporate model no longer reflects the realities of today’s families or today’s talent.
For decades, organisations have been asking why so few women reach senior leadership positions or remain in entrepreneurial roles. The answers are no longer ambiguous. Research from McKinsey, the OECD, UN Women, and Harvard Business Review converge on one central point: The issue is not women. The issue is how work is designed.
The cost of not addressing this, demonstrated by talent loss, performance, and innovation. is significant. I understand this not only through research, but through lived experience. When I was a high school exchange student in New York, someone told me that a top woman executive at Reuters returned to work just 10 days after giving birth. I assumed this was the definition of strength and ambition. I believed I would do the same.
Two decades later, as a new mother in a demanding leadership role, I learnt what the data has been saying for years: women are not held back by lack of ambition, but by the collision of work structures with caregiving realities. Like many women, I struggled to return at full speed.
What happened to me is not an outlier. It is a pattern that research describes with striking clarity. The motherhood penalty is one of the strongest, most consistent findings.
Even in high-income countries, women’s earnings fall sharply after having a child, while men’s earnings remain unchanged or even rise.
Administrative data from several European countries finds long-term income losses for mothers of 25 per cent in France, 33 per cent in Italy, and 41 per cent in Germany, compared to no penalty for fathers.
This penalty is not only financial; it affects promotions and leadership pipelines. The years when women often have children coincide with the years when organisations expect their most intense availability.
Women are not opting out; they are pushed out by inflexible structures
A landmark study by the Center for Work-Life Policy found that 43 per cent of highly qualified women with children off-ramp from full-time careers at some point, often due to inflexible schedules, lack of childcare, and unsustainable expectations. More recent data from McKinsey and LeanIn.org shows that flexibility is now one of the most important retention factors: one in five women say flexible work arrangements have kept them from reducing hours or quitting.
The message is clear: when workplaces do not flex, many women leave, not because they lack commitment, but because the structure makes continued leadership incompatible with caregiving and recovery.
The invisible load is real and measurable
Globally, women perform 2.5 times more unpaid care and domestic work than men, according to UN Women and the ILO. Even women without children shoulder disproportionate emotional labour, planning, and caregiving for family members.
This invisible workload affects energy, mental space, and availability, yet most workplace systems assume that all employees have the same ability to work long hours, attend late meetings, and remain constantly accessible.
When women fall out of leadership, organisations lose out
The business case for gender-diverse leadership is consistently strong: McKinsey finds that companies in the top quartile of gender diversity on executive teams are 25 per cent more likely to financially outperform their peers. BCG research shows that women-founded start-ups generate more than twice the revenue per dollar invested than those founded by men.
As such, the loss of women from leadership pipelines is not only a fairness issue but it is a strategic one. Organisations are losing individuals who bring proven strengths in resilience, stakeholder empathy, disciplined prioritisation, and collaborative leadership styles.
What we know about work hours and flexibility
Research has repeatedly shown that longer working hours and constant in-office presence do not necessarily correlate with higher performance. A well-known randomised experiment at a major travel company found that employees allowed to work from home saw their productivity rise by 13 per cent and their attrition drop by about 50 per cent. Later hybrid-work studies show similar results: no decline in promotions or output, and substantially improved retention.
While these studies are not specific to women, they matter for gender equality because women and especially mothers carry heavier caregiving responsibilities. When rigid work models are enforced, women are disproportionately affected. The research-based conclusion is clear: Flexibility does not reduce performance.
What organisations can do constructively and practically
The data points to several structural solutions that do not require dramatic reinvention, but thoughtful redesign. Firstly, make flexibility a standard option. Hybrid work, flexible hours, and predictable scheduling significantly improve retention without hurting productivity. Secondly, redesign the ‘critical years’ for career progression. Since most women leave leadership tracks between ages 28–45, when caregiving peaks, organisations can adjust promotion timelines, provide temporary role redesigns, and create structured “on-ramp” programs after parental leave or career breaks.
Thirdly, support caregiving infrastructure. Access to affordable childcare is one of the strongest predictors of women’s long-term workforce participation, according to World Bank and OECD data. Fourth, shift from measuring presence to measuring outcomes. If organisations reward hours, availability, and constant visibility, they unintentionally penalise caregivers. If they reward output and impact, they allow people with diverse life circumstances to compete equitably.
Then, finally, track the pipeline with data. Collecting metrics on hiring, promotion, pay, and attrition disaggregated by gender and life stage helps organisations identify where women are falling out and intervene early.
A better future requires better design
When we ask why there are so few women at the top, we often focus on individual behaviour: confidence, choice, ambition. But research consistently shows the real issue is structural.
We still design work around a model from a different era, one in which one person worked and one person stayed home. That model no longer reflects the realities of today’s families or today’s talent.
Fixing this is not about blame. It is about modernisation.
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