The leadership pipeline for women is flashing a warning

Written by LinkedIn Editor Taylor Borden

When Colorado-native Meg O'Neill takes the helm as the chief executive of London-based bp next month, she'll join a tiny club: women leading major oil companies. In fact, she'll be the first and only member.

Her appointment, which she called "tremendously exciting," is a historic milestone and a reminder of how narrow women's paths to the C-suite continue to be despite perceived progress.

While companies with more women in senior positions often see better business outcomes, including higher profits, stronger workplace culture and improved decision-making, gender parity is still far off. Women make up nearly half of the global workforce (44%), they account for less than one-third (31%) of roles at the vice-president level and above, according to new research from LinkedIn's Economic Graph . After years of steady gains, progress has slowed to a near standstill.

From 2015 to 2022, the share of women in top-level management rose consistently, climbing from 27.9% to 30.7% — roughly 0.4 percentage points per year. That pace has slowed since 2022, including a paltry 0.1 percentage point increase in the last year.

The shift is even more visible in hiring. Across 16 major economies, women's share of new senior leadership hires peaked at 34.8% in 2022. It's been declining since, falling to 32.9% in 2025, including a full percentage-point drop just in the last year.

This International Women's Day, new LinkedIn data suggests women are still striving and tying their identities closely to work — but their path to leadership may be narrowing.

Where progress is stalling

Labor market slack disproportionately impacts women's leadership hiring.

Going from a tight labor market — roughly three job postings for every two applicants — to a slack one — closer to one posting for every two applicants — is associated with a roughly two-percentage-point drop in women's leadership representation. That's the equivalent of erasing three years of progress.

What's more? Women aren't applying less for leadership roles during these downturns. In some sectors, they're even applying at higher rates than men. The research suggests the slowdown is happening on the employer side.

Current projections suggest the labor market won't help turn the tide for women anytime soon. Just 41% of U.S. leaders say they believe the economy will be better a year from now, down 12 percentage points year-over-year, according to LinkedIn's Executive Confidence survey. Those same executives also say their hiring plans are softening across the org chart, particularly for entry-level and management roles — the very rungs that feed the future C-suite.

Women face the greatest hurdles at key promotion stages. Globally, representation drops 18% from senior individual contributor roles to first-line manager roles. The steepest cliff remains the jump from VP to C-suite, where representation falls by 30%. These gaps are especially pronounced in industries including financial services, technology and transportation.

Plus, parity at the base of the workforce doesn't automatically translate upward. Women make up a significant share of employees in healthcare, education and retail but leadership representation still thins at the top. 

Some experts attribute this to shifting organizational priorities. "Now almost no organization has a meaningful management development track," Jane Edison Stevenson, global vice chair at consultancy Korn Ferry, explains. "It's a problem in general, and it's especially a problem for women," she continues.

Ambition isn't the issue — intention is

"If there isn't a specific intentionality about making sure that spots are filled by women, then we could lose ground," Edison Stevenson says. The issue? Women's career advancement doesn't happen in a vacuum. It happens alongside caregiving demands, shifting workplace norms and evolving flexibility policies. 

Globally, women are 55.2% more likely than men to take career breaks and remain out of the workforce longer — 19.6 months, compared to 13.9 months for men. About one-third of those women cite full-time parenting as the primary reason for the break, versus 7.3% of men. This far exceeds any other reason for taking a step back for women, while men's top reason for a career break is professional development.

Those interruptions carry long-term economic consequences, from reduced lifetime earnings to lower economic security in retirement — the kinds of effects that compound over decades.

💡Check out these relevant LinkedIn Learning courses that are free for all members until March 31: The Four Phases of Women's Careers and Career Strategies for Women Re-Entering the Workforce

Meanwhile, employers may be rolling back programs that tend to help working caregivers. Recent research from McKinsey shows that 13% of employers scaled back or discontinued flexible work arrangements in 2025, while 25% reduced or eliminated remote or hybrid work options. That same research found that two in 10 employers admit they are placing little or no priority on women's career advancement.

Women feel that lack of support. The combination of these structural and cultural forces are prompting women to consider whether they want to "shapeshift" to make their lives fit how work is currently designed. "Every woman I speak to, it's not that they're not ambitious, it's just that they don't see a role for themselves in that mainstream kind of competition," Alison Taylor , an NYU Stern School of Business professor, told Bloomberg.

And yet, women remain deeply invested in their work. LinkedIn's Workforce Confidence survey shows a whopping 65% of women in the U.S. say their job is an important part of their identity, higher than men at 60%. 

But identity without reinforcement can erode confidence. Consider Emma Chalwin , Workday's chief marketing officer. She told LinkedIn News about an early-career moment that still sticks with her.

"I built up all my confidence to speak up," Chalwin said of a time she was in a room filled with male senior leaders. "I was very passionate about it because it was something that was important to me, and after the meeting he gave me the feedback from the room that I was over emotional."

It's the kind of interaction Harvard Business School researchers describe as an exercise in "perception management," something female leaders have to contend with more often than men. Understandably, it made Chalwin reconsider speaking up in rooms where she was in the minority.

That attitude didn't change until she had a new manager — a woman — who, in a very similar room of senior leaders, raised her own hand to say: "Actually, Emma has a really excellent point of view, she's a subject matter expert in this area and I'd love her to share a perspective."

💡Check out these relevant LinkedIn Learning courses that are free for all members until March 31: Mentoring Tips for Senior Leaders, Closing the Confidence Gap, How to Build Gender Balanced Businesses and Teams

That type of sponsorship can move the needle: McKinsey found that in the past two years, employees with sponsors have been promoted at nearly twice the rate of those without.

But sponsorship, by definition, depends on someone else opening the door. Some women are choosing to build their own.

Building new pathways

Entrepreneurship is becoming a clear expression of women's ambition in a slower labor market. Over the past decade, the share of global founders who are women has jumped over 5 percentage points, LinkedIn data shows. Today, nearly 30% of founders worldwide are women. 

In an environment where management tracks are shrinking and promotion cycles are slowing, starting a company can offer something traditional corporate ladders increasingly cannot: autonomy.

There are also generational shifts underway. The drop in women's representation from the workforce to top leadership roles is 31.5% for baby boomers, compared with 21.7% for Gen Z, indicating narrower gaps among younger cohorts, who are starting to make up more of the workforce. Women now make up 48% of Gen Z workers globally, compared to just 27.4% of baby boomers.

The cumulative barriers, from career interruptions to slower promotion trajectories, haven't disappeared, but this suggests younger cohorts of women could be entering the workforce on more equal footing. They're coming in with different expectations around flexibility and advancement — and may be less willing to accept systems that stall their progress.

"What asset of any kind, if you had it available, would you not use?," Korn Ferry's Edison Stevenson asks. "If you had oil and it was available, you would use it. If you have money available, you use it. Women are an available resource that are being underutilized."

O'Neill wrote that she's "looking forward to the challenge of leading the company's next chapter," as she steps into her role as CEO of BP. 

The question now is how many women will have that same chance.

💡Looking for more resources to upskill? Check out this LinkedIn Learning path (free for all members until March 31): Skills for Advancing as a Woman in Leadership