This article is written by Sara Garcia Arteagoitia, Senior Researcher and Wanda Mollica, Research and Policy Engagement Coordinator at the Innovation Growth Lab.

  • The problem: As women from the Baby Boom generation retire and many leadership positions need to be filled, governments and civil servants need to guarantee equitable replacements.
  • Why it matters: There is an opportunity in the number of positions that need replacement to restructure organisations for increased gender equality.
  • The solution: Looking at replacement rates in leadership positions longitudinally can help paint a richer picture of where organisations stand and help identify issues.

The baby boomer generation is retiring. And with them, a huge cohort of women who joined the workforce in the 70s, 80s and 90s fighting to “have it all”: maintain maternity levels and participate in the labour force at unprecedented rates – with a considerable number also achieving leadership roles in a male-dominated workforce. As these women leave the labour market, organisations have the opportunity to take stock of the existing structures and (re)consider what systems need to be put in place for the new generations of women in the labour force to thrive.

A woman's performance influences how other women are evaluated: if one fails, other women will be mistrusted.

Women’s struggles to achieve leadership positions are well-established, and linked to, among other factors: gender bias and stereotypes, lack of opportunities, disproportionate family responsibilities, lack of mentorship and sponsorship, and unequal standards of success.

Once they reach leadership positions, things don’t get easier. Women often enter positions of power in more precarious situations than men – known as the ‘glass cliff’ – so the task tends to be more difficult from the get-go. And, after breaking the so-called ‘glass ceiling’, a woman's performance influences how other women are evaluated: if one fails, other women will be mistrusted.

But equality is neither reached nor automatically advanced by the sheer presence of women in top management positions. The effect of female leadership on female representation in management is mixed. The appointment through gender quotas of women in board positions in Norway did not result in a positive gender spillover in the lower ranks of the organisations. And the effect of women holding top leadership positions on managerial gender diversity appears to be favourable but short-lived. What is more, women leaders in male-dominated environments might suffer from what is known as ‘Queen Bee’ behaviour, where they resist gender quotas and affirmative action as a consequence of the significant personal sacrifices they had to make to get where they are.

While having women in leadership positions is not the same as having achieved organisational equality, equality cannot be reached without women in leadership positions. And monitoring the development of this metric is crucial.

How the monitoring of that metric happens is equally important. We have observed, as part of our work with business associations, in auditing, and past experiences working with Small and Medium Enterprises, that women leaders of the baby boomer generation are often being substituted by men when they leave the workforce. When looking for more systematic figures, we find that the cross-sectional data of female leadership that is normally captured might be hiding this longitudinal phenomenon.

In an equal world, women would be substituted by women at the same rate as they are substituted by men. Accessing longitudinal data of specific positions in an organisation and looking at how they evolve can help capture dimensions of the organisational evolution that looking at cross-sectional data does not.

If substitution rates are balanced in a historical perspective, it may indicate that organisations are committed to promoting gender diversity and have developed structures and policies that support women's advancement. This often means intervening in policies directed towards men, such as fostering the uptake of paternity leave.

However, if the rate is unbalanced, it suggests that access to leadership positions is not equitable and that women are facing barriers to entry or advancement – overall or in specific departments. This might be due to individual bias that judges men on their potential and women on their achievements in hiring decisions, and gender stereotypes that might make men feel more adequate as substitutes for women. Studies also show that women are more reluctant to self-promote compared to men – the gender promotion gap – which might bias the perceived pool of candidates to fill the empty position. And it might further be due to organisational structures that favour the advancement of men, especially during child-rearing years.

Being conscious of the substitution rate also helps in projecting the organisation forward. If many leaders from the Baby Boom generation retire, the new positions need to be filled at least to the same or more equal gender ratios. And to achieve that goal, the obstacles and existing organisational structures need to be systematically analysed.

Substitution rates alone don’t capture the complexity of gender inequality in leadership. Organisations also need to look at the retention rate of female leaders, promotion rates, pay equity, employee satisfaction, the availability of flexible work arrangements and the presence of mentorship and sponsorship programmes for women. Gender inequality is a systemic issue and a balanced substitution rate is only part of what is needed to dismantle the patriarchal structures that inhibit equity and equality.

Policymakers can help create the structures for new generations of women to thrive by ensuring that companies and public administration track these metrics and have plans in place to deal with unbalanced results.

👋 You can write an article like this one! Share your thoughts with a community of public servants. Learn more

(Image Credit: Unsplash)