100 Years to Reach Parity at Senior Corporate Levels in Mexico

In the second edition of our recent report, Women Matter México 2022, we presented an overview of current progress and changes in gender issues, as well as an analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on women's careers. This is an extremely relevant issue in our country that any organization and leader must understand in depth.

For this report, we considered a broad and representative universe of the Mexican business community. This study reflects data collected from 120 companies in different industries that employ more than 1.1 million people nationwide and have a turnover equivalent to 35 percent of GDP. With this sample, we can draw a fairly accurate picture of the role of women in the country's business ecosystem. 

We analyzed how women’s standing in companies has changed since 2017, starting with the level of priority given to gender diversity, which shows progress as 74 percent of companies report it among the Top 10 priorities on their agendas, compared to 48 percent in 2017; only 4 percent of companies do not include it on their strategic agenda, compared to 9 percent in 2017. Currently, 45 percent of companies have a Diversity Committee, and 96 percent of these senior leaders participate actively. 

However, an important aspect to highlight is the underrepresentation of women at all levels of the corporate hierarchy, which is even starker at the highest levels. In general terms, the increase in female workers has been marginal, only 3 percentage points, from 35 to 38 percent. At entry levels, despite the fact that more women are graduating from universities, they barely represent 40 percent of the employee population. In management positions, the report points out an increase from 35 to 37 percent, and from 25 to 29 percent in senior management positions.

The largest gap in gender parity is among leadership and senior management positions, with a low 21 percent female representation in vice president positions. In senior vice president positions, women’s participation decreased in the last four years, from 16 percent to 14 percent, while the percentage of women on executive committees remained at 10 percent, and only 1 in 10 CEOs is a woman.

Given the trend shown by this study, specifically at senior levels, we estimate that only 20 percent of senior positions will be held by women by 2050 and that by 2120, in 100 years, Mexico would reach 50 percent parity in the most senior positions of the corporate hierarchy.

This 100-year estimate comes from projecting progress forward at the observed average rate. However, within sample companies, we observed that some are moving much faster and that if they continue on this path, they will reach gender parity in about 10-20 years. This led us to look at what these companies are doing that others are not.

The Impact of COVID on Women’s Careers

The report also looked at the impact of COVID-19 in terms of additional family care responsibilities, revealing a huge disparity, with 40 percent of women taking full responsibility for household chores, compared to 6 percent of men with children who answered the same.

Undoubtedly, the pandemic affected both men and women professionally; however, it was women who experienced the greatest impact on their state of mind: 44 percent mentioned feeling like they always had to be connected (versus 37 percent of men); 40 percent experienced a feeling of constant stress (versus 32 percent of men), 33 percent felt exhausted (versus 24 percent of men); and 26 percent felt concerned about childcare responsibilities at home (versus 23 percent of men). Likewise, women in senior positions reported higher burnout rates, above 50 percent.

An important change the COVID-19 crisis brought with it, which can help promote better gender equity in the workplace, was the adoption of the remote work model. This, according to 90 percent of sample companies, will help attract and retain more female talent. In addition, 80 percent of women and 73 percent of men want to work remotely at least one day a week in the future, showing that flexible work arrangements are viewed positively and can be implemented widely.

How to Accelerate Change

We established a conceptual framework with five key dimensions: commitment, leadership development, infrastructure, metrics and performance indicators, behaviors and mindsets (CLIMB), which aims to achieve gender parity at all levels.

To compare gender programs implemented by sample companies, we classified more than 50 initiatives related to gender diversity in each of the CLIMB dimensions and assigned a rating based on the number and level of implementation of these initiatives. The dimension with the highest ratings is metrics and performance indicators, in which half of the sample companies measure female representativeness in recruitment stages, compared to 31 percent in 2017. The dimension with the most challenges is leadership development, as only 9 percent of companies have sponsorship programs for women, compared to 6 percent in 2017.

At the same time, we identified the group of companies that have posted the best results in terms of female representativeness in senior positions and found that there are 17 initiatives that these companies execute to a greater extent than companies with the lowest representativeness levels. 

Some of them have a Diversity Committee, establish diversity as an evaluation metric, define incentives for leaders, communicate their commitment to diversity, require a minimum of one female candidate in recruitment processes, have a formal female executive retention program, and launch mentoring and sponsorship programs, among others initiatives.

The 17 initiatives fall within 3 of the 5 CLIMB pillars: engagement, leadership development, and infrastructure. If implemented broadly and uniformly across all organizations, these would reduce the time to reach gender parity in our country.

The clearer the new rules are for hybrid work models and the greater awareness of the need for balance, the more companies will be able to access a broader network of talent and achieve better results in terms of gender equity.