Ageism May Be Holding Younger Women Back From Advancing At Work

Ageism encompasses stereotypes and the unfair treatment of people based on their age, and it impacts people’s advancement in the workplace. While ageism has traditionally been associated with older people, new research finds that younger women in the workplace may be more susceptible to age-based discrimination as compared to young men and older workers of any gender.

“Young women are saying that (ageism) is leading to missed opportunities—whether it’s promotions, raises, or other career-advancing opportunities,” says Caroline Fairchild, editor in chief and VP of education at Lean In. “They feel like because of the way that they present or the way they look or just their age in general, they’re having a harder time being taken seriously.”

Almost half of women under 30 say their age has negatively impacted them at work, compared to 35% of men under 30, according to the Women In In the Workplace Report 2024, the largest study of the state of women in corporate America and Canada done by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company. (For people ages 50-59, 25% of men and 29% of women say age has negatively impacted them at work). Women under 30 are also almost twice as likely as men of the same age to field unwanted comments about their age.

‘Youngism,’ a type of reverse ageism, may be an overlooked contributor to the broken rung, where women, and particularly women of color, are less likely to be promoted to that first rung of manager level. According to the report, for every 100 men promoted to manager, just 81 women overall are promoted—and that number shrinks to 54 for Black women and 65 for Latina women. It’s a major barrier to more women advancing into leadership, and means there aren’t enough women in the pipeline to leadership so women will never be able to catch up.

Of course, the report shows that people of all ages experience ageism in the workplace. More research from the Harvard Business Review confirms this, finding that women face age bias whether they are young, middle aged or older. Creating more equitable workplaces calls for combating pervasive ageism and sexism simultaneously (along with racism), as we are nearly 50 years from reaching parity in the workplace.

Some progress has been made: Women today make up 29% of the C-suite positions, up from only 17% in 2015, the first year the Women in the Workplace Report was released. However, that progress is fragile. Fairchild shares a few reasons why.

Women Are Underrepresented In Line Roles

While there’s been a 12% increase in women’s representation in the C-suite and a 7% increase in VP roles since the report first came out in 2015, the increased representation of women in senior leadership comes down to more women being represented in staff roles versus line roles.

As we move up the corporate pipeline, a significant majority of line positions—particularly in profit and loss domains such as sales and product management—are predominantly occupied by men. Women are more often found in staff roles, which encompass vital support functions like legal and human resources.

“Over time, we have seen a gradual decline in the number of line roles, which disproportionately affects men,” says Fairchild. “This shift has inadvertently increased women’s representation in leadership, given that staff roles have been more stable and where women are more concentrated. While it is commendable to see more women in staff roles within the C-suite, we must ensure that women are actively promoted into line positions as well, fostering a truly sustainable path to gender parity.”

Companies Are Wavering On Their Commitment To DEI

The report finds that over the last 10 years, companies are doing more to de-bias the hiring process and performance reviews. Companies are also offering more benefits for caregivers and those struggling with health issues, as well as more flexible work policies overall. However, this year companies are scaling back on programs designed to advance women and address the unique barriers they face. The persistence of the ‘broken rung’ signals that companies can’t afford to go backwards on efforts to advance gender and racial equity.

“What is concerning is that there are signs that we’re in a moment right now where company commitment to diversity—both on the gender and racial front—is declining,” says Fairchild. “Companies can be a powerful force when it comes to driving change, but we’re at this critical inflection point right now where we can’t afford to slow down. Our call to action for companies is to stay committed.”

Sexual Harassment In The Workplace Is Still Prevalent

Creating safe and respectable workplace cultures where harassment is never tolerated may still be out of reach. Roughly 4 in 10 women have experienced some form of sexual harassment during their careers. One sign that sexual harassment—such as having sexually-explicit comments directed at you—is not becoming any less common is that younger women are just as likely as older women to have experienced this in their career.

Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, told me in a previous Forbes article, “If I’ve learned nothing else (since the #MeToo movement went viral), it is that fixing laws and policies alone won’t be enough, and that taking on our culture is going to have to happen alongside it in terms of how it is that people see and understand the issues of gender-based violence in this country.”

This year’s Women in the Workplace Report shows that we can’t take any gains in women’s representation in leadership for granted, and must keep taking intentional action steps to make workplace work for everyone. Doing so will benefit women, families, companies, and the economy. Closing gender gaps in employment, for example, would lead to a 20% boost in GDP per capita.

“Our concern, given the data that we explore in this year’s report, is that unless companies not only reinvest and recommit to advancing within their organizations, but also start to adapt a more expansive and creative playbook of solutions, we’re going to continue to see stalled progress,” says Fairchild. “Fifty years is too long for us to get to parity for all women in corporate America.”