Give to gain: Preventing a double disadvantage for women in the workplace

International Women’s Day is a moment for reflection, but also for action. This year’s theme ‘Give to Gain’ encourages individuals and organizations to adopt a mindset of generosity and collaboration, recognizing that when we actively give support, opportunity and visibility to women, the ripple effects are far-reaching.

In the context of work, this means considering what organizations and leaders can give to remove barriers and enable women to thrive. Decades of research have shown the strong business case for greater diversity, including gender diversity, on executive teams. Yet despite progress, many women continue to face structural barriers that limit their advancement.

For global organizations, the challenge is even more complex. Gender inequality can intersect with other factors such as language background, creating what could be described as a double disadvantage that can hold talented employees back.

Understanding this intersection can help organizations prioritize what to give this year to unlock the full potential of their workforce.

While many organizations report progress toward gender inclusion, recent data suggests that advancement is far from consistent. Companies with stronger representation of women across the talent pipeline continue to pull ahead, while lower-performing organizations are making slower and more uneven gains.

Top-performing companies have increased the share of women in leadership by an average of seven percentage points between 2021 and 2025. In contrast, progress at lower-performing companies has been modest or inconsistent across levels.

One key factor identified as holding women back is sponsorship. Employees with sponsors were promoted at nearly twice the rate of those without in the past two years. Yet women are significantly less likely than men to have sponsors, particularly at entry-level roles and at senior stages where leadership pipelines are shaped.

These patterns suggest that inclusion outcomes are shaped by intentional structural practices rather than awareness alone. Organizations that embed sponsorship, accountability, and inclusive leadership behaviors into their systems are strengthening their talent pipelines, while others risk reinforcing existing gaps.

In multinational workplaces, women’s progression can be shaped by overlapping factors related to language, race, and emerging technologies.

Non-native speakers may face additional challenges in expressing ideas, influencing discussions, or building professional confidence in environments dominated by a single working language. Research analyzing labor markets in Europe and North America found that non-native-born employees earn approximately 18% less annually on average compared to native-born workers, largely due to reduced access to higher-paying roles.

Similarly, these barriers can become even more pronounced when gender intersects with race and ethnicity. While women represent 49% of entry-level positions, they account for just 29% of C-suite leadership. The gap is even wider for women of color, who make up 21% of entry-level employees but only 7% of executive roles.

As organizations increasingly integrate AI into recruitment and workplace tools, technology is becoming another structural factor shaping inclusion. AI has significant potential to expand access to training and development opportunities, but without careful oversight it may reproduce biases present in its training data, creating risks for fair and inclusive recruitment when used in candidate screening and evaluation. At the same time, unequal encouragement and support in using AI tools risks creating new capability gaps, as entry-level women are less likely than men to be encouraged by managers to use AI tools.

When gender, language, race, and emerging technologies intersect, structural barriers can compound, limiting progression even for highly capable employees. For global organizations, recognizing and addressing these overlapping dynamics is essential to building truly inclusive leadership pipelines.