WOMEN IN MANAGEMENT: THE LEADERSHIP PIPELINE 2016

Women make up 46% of all those in employment in Ireland however data on the leadership pipeline as it refers to gender is scant. In 2015, the 30% Club Ireland and the Leadership & Talent Research Institute at DCU Business
School undertook the first survey of women in management in Ireland. The purpose of the study was to ascertain the participation rates of women in management hierarchies throughout corporate Ireland. This investigation found that the situation in Ireland is not unlike that found in many European countries and the United States. Women were less likely than men to hold management positions in all sectors of Irish industry across organisation types and size. Indeed women’s participation in management was found to be inversely related to the leadership hierarchy, reflecting the ‘sticky floor’ rather than the glass ceiling that many women encounter as they get stuck in the
bottleneck of middle management. Where women did achieve seniority, they were more likely to be found in traditionally female-dominated functions of HR and Marketing and less likely to occupy leadership positions in Finance, Sales, Operations or IT. The current report presents the findings of the second iteration of this survey.