ILO Report Tracks Women's Gains in Business
A new International Labour Organization study finds more enterprises with women in top leadership, but fewer committing to gender equality initiatives.
Updated on Nov. 3, 2026 in Women’s Issues
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The International Labour Organization released Women in Business and Management: Scaling Success, drawing on a 2025 global survey of 11,957 enterprises in 99 countries. It finds women's representation in senior leadership has grown while gender equality initiatives have declined across enterprises.
Why it matters
Gaps in the management pipeline and falling implementation of enterprise initiatives could make recent gains harder to sustain. Unequal care responsibilities, occupational segregation and persistent social norms remain structural barriers outside the workplace.
Nearly three quarters (74.8%) of surveyed enterprises reported having a gender equality policy in 2025, while the share implementing such initiatives fell from 37.4% in 2018 to 26.5%. Among enterprises reporting higher profits from women-in-management initiatives, 87.4% reported gains of at least 5%.
The players
International Labour Organization (ILO)
The ILO is a United Nations agency founded in 1919 that sets international labour standards and produces research on employment and working conditions.
The details
Gender balance improved at senior and top management levels between 2013 and 2025 but declined at junior and middle management levels. Nearly seven in ten surveyed enterprises said gender equality and diversity initiatives improved business outcomes, up 11.1 percentage points from 2018. The report highlights measures including strengthening women's leadership pipelines, using gender metrics and voluntary targets, and embedding gender equality into accountability frameworks.
Timeline
2013: Baseline year for enterprise board chair and CEO representation figures.
2018: Earlier enterprise survey serving as baseline for the decline in initiative implementation.
2023: Year tertiary education enrollment figures were recorded, with 46.4% of women and 40.3% of men enrolled.
2025: ILO global enterprise survey conducted; the report's data year.
Culture Shift
The 2025 findings extend the ILO's 2013 and 2018 enterprise surveys, tracking how women's representation in top business roles has grown while commitments to gender equality programs have weakened. The pattern suggests progress at the top of firms may not yet be reaching the middle management pipeline.
Employees and job seekers may see more enterprises adopting gender equality policies, which nearly three quarters of surveyed firms already report having. Managers planning leadership pipelines can review the report's recommendations on gender metrics and voluntary targets.
The takeaway
Senior-level gains for women in business are real, but sustaining them depends on rebuilding junior and middle management pipelines and keeping equality initiatives in place. Organizations that track gender metrics across all management levels are better positioned to see whether progress holds.
Further reading
Explore more coverage in our Women's Issues section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by International Labour Organization.
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