Women in India, Kenya, and Nigeria are far from achieving parity in representation in the workplace because of entrenched systemic challenges preventing them from reaching leadership roles at scale, according to a new McKinsey & Company report, “Women in the Workplace 2025: India, Nigeria, and Kenya,” released in May. The study analyzed 324 organizations across the three countries, which together employ 1.4 million people.
Not only do women in these countries face distinct challenges in entering the workforce, but they also encounter systemic barriers in key sectors, such as finance, health care, and legal, the report shows. The policies and procedures correlated with better outcomes for women’s representation are not being successfully implemented, and measures for progress and accountability are lacking.
For the last 10 years, McKinsey and Leanin.org have conducted annual research on women in the formal workforce in the United States and Canada. For the first time, they extended that research to these emerging markets to address what the organizations see as a major data gap.
“Our study found that women face challenges that vary by country and sector but result in low representation of women in senior leadership roles across the board,” says Mayowa Kuyoro, partner and head of the Africa financial services group at McKinsey & Company, one of the report’s authors. While women’s representation in each country is highest at the entry-level — from 41% in Kenya to 33% in Nigeria and India — women’s representation in senior leadership roles remains low, the research shows, with less than 30% of C-suite positions held by women.
“Advancing gender parity is essential for a fair and inclusive workplace where all employees are supported to perform at their best every day. Organizations across India, Nigeria, and Kenya have an opportunity to learn from each other.”
— Mayowa Kuyoro
India
In India, a ‘dual-edged reality’ was observed: women have low rates of initial employment, high attrition rates, and high stagnation rates in the private workforce. Obstacles at the entry-level are low recruitment and limited promotions. Women’s representation drops nine percentage points from 33% at the entry-level to 24% at the manager level. The study states that hiring figures in India do not indicate things are likely to improve.
Either employers are hiring fewer women or women in these roles remain longer without advancing, so there is a “bulge” of women at the entry-level, the report states. A seven-year age gap between men and women at the entry-level suggests that women start their careers later or stagnate. At the board level, women experience greater representation, a trend likely influenced by local mandates requiring at least one woman in director roles.
In India’s finance, health care, and legal sectors, women experienced a drop from entry-level to C-suite caused by the drop in managerial roles. This is attributed to the demanding nature of work, the conflict it creates with family responsibilities because of travel and social obligations, and the unconscious bias in tasks assigned to women with families, according to the report.
Kenya
In Kenya, women’s workplace representation sees a classic declining funnel in both the public and private sectors. Women start strong, holding 46% of entry-level roles in the public sector and 40% in the private sector. But C-suite representation declines to 27%.
The research reveals that women in the private sector advancing to management encounter a broken rung due to sociocultural challenges and the dynamics of personal life and caregiving responsibilities. In contrast, public sector representation remains high because of standardized schemes that define clear career progression paths, including time-bound promotions based on tenure, performance, and qualifications.
In health care, in particular, representation drops at the C-suite level because many top roles require relocation, which Kenyan women are often unable or unwilling to do. In the public sector, a dip is seen in women’s representation in senior-level roles and hiring, suggesting increased appointment-based hiring at these levels, which tends to favor men. Attrition rates, however, are lower because of favorable terms in civil service employment, job security, and the satisfaction of influencing policymaking.
Nigeria
In Nigeria, Kuyoro says, “The primary bottleneck the report identified in the formal private sector is at the entry-level. Despite women making up almost half of the national workforce, they hold just one in three entry-level roles, indicating systemic barriers may be limiting women’s access to these opportunities.”
Systemic barriers include deep-rooted beliefs about gender roles in the workplace. This entry-level barrier “creates a compounding effect that ultimately results in the low representation in the C-suite.
“The research indicated some fields, such as engineering and technical services, are traditionally viewed as male-dominated,” she says. “For instance, an HR professional from an extraction company we interviewed mentioned that they would be less inclined to hire women for roles in these sectors due to the perception that they are not suitable for women. Similarly, our research unveiled that during internships, women and men are often segmented to perform different tasks, with women assigned more administrative tasks while men were tasked to handle fieldwork.”
Once women break through the initial barriers to employment, the study shows their representation remains stable as they advance through the ranks. Women hold 29 out of every 100 roles, from manager to C-suite. “This steady progression, however, does not mitigate the broader lack of gender equity through the pipeline,” Kuyoro says.
Best intentions
In exploring how employers can take action to increase gender representation, the report reveals a disparity between intention and implementation — 77% of companies reported that CEOs see gender diversity as a priority. However, many companies are not tracking even standard business priorities such as hiring and promotion rates.
Baseline policies related to safety, security, and bias mitigation are highly prevalent among organizations with a high proportion of women; however, policies related to mentorship and sponsorship, flexible work, and family and personal care are not widespread.
To bridge this gap between priority and practice, the study identifies three bottlenecks that organizations can address:
- Limited opportunities for women entering the workforce were seen in all three countries. Strengthening university recruitment initiatives and introducing women to focused internships would help women transition to the workforce.
- Inadequate support for women’s advancement into management was observed in all three countries. The report suggests establishing structured career acceleration pathways would support equitable progress. Expanding and institutionalizing flexible work policies would also help overcome those challenges.
- Barriers preventing women from reaching senior leadership roles were noted in India and Kenya. Structured mentorship and sponsorship programs, flexible work policies, equitable performance evaluations, improved family support policies, and formalized public sector leadership pathways for women can address these problems.
Organizations can advance women’s progress by following three steps, the report states: Diagnose the problems, design policies to address them, and monitor their effectiveness.
“Advancing gender parity is essential for a fair and inclusive workplace where all employees are supported to perform at their best every day,” says Kuyoro. “Organizations across India, Nigeria, and Kenya have an opportunity to learn from each other.
“Each country, as well as specific sectors within those countries, experiences the challenges to differing degrees, and no issue remains unsolved across the board. Through collaborative efforts, gender parity can move from an aspirational goal to a tangible reality, enabling every woman to contribute, thrive, and lead.”
