Italy, year 2024: female leadership in companies is slowing down. Paradoxical, in the era when everyone, on multiple private and institutional levels, is talking about gender equality…
The latest trends, which we report not to demoralise but to encourage us to do more and better, come from LinkedIn data of the Global Gender Gap Report 2024 published by the World Economic Forum. In the US, the share of female hires in top positions has dropped from 41.4% in 2022 to 40.1%, in the UK from 37.8% to 37.1% and in Italy from 35.1% to 34.1%.
Imbalances that not only quantify a decline of women in ‘top’ careers but also highlight the correlation between economic shocks and gender gaps. Indeed, the slowdown of the last two years has contributed to eroding the marginal gains made in the recruitment race between 2021 and 2022. The data also says that the percentage of women leaders decreases as seniority increases: from parity for entry-level (50.7%) it drops to 35.2% for VPs and 26.4% for C-suite. This again suggests that not enough is being done to support women in career progression, for example by pushing flexibility and hybrid working. Equally relevant is the inequality associated with pay gaps: industries with a higher presence of women usually have lower wages.
If AI requires soft skills
A further piece comes from Microsoft and LinkedIn’s Work Trend Index 2024. According to the research, in fact, AI is already transforming, a lot, workplaces. 75 per cent of knowledge workers use it and LinkedIn users who add AI skills to their profiles have increased 142-fold. This is a dynamic context in which soft skills are valuable. And women have a higher percentage of soft skills: team leadership, strategic leadership and collaboration stand out in the LinkedIn rankings.
Although the overall data paint a difficult picture for gender equity in the workplace, digital innovation offers levers for recovery, with an increase in the share of female AI talent from 24.9% in 2016 to 26.8% in 2023. Italy, unfortunately, is bucking the trend: falling, albeit slightly, from 30.44% in 2016 to 30.41% in 2023. However, to leave a positive message, the concentration of women in AI engineering has more than doubled, at +133% compared to 2016, although not at the same rate as men (+173%). From here, therefore, it is important to start again with Stem training, career support in every field, programmes and targeted investments in order not to miss important opportunities for growth and social development.
https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-gender-gap-report-2024/
This article is part of the column produced in collaboration with the Italian Group of the AVIXA Women’s Council. One of the main objectives of the Council is to give visibility to professional women in the AV world in Italy and to the activities dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion in the Italian STEM sector.
