Perspectives: The promotion gap is real. Here's how to fix it

WRITTEN BY MARIANNE COOPER

Over the past five years, LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company have taken a yearly look at the status of women in corporate America. In that time, we have analyzed data from close to 600 companies and more than 250,000 employees. And every year, we have found that women are underrepresented at each level of the pipeline, from entry-level jobs all the way to the corner office.

This is especially true for senior-level positions, and that's thanks to an unseen and little understood problem blocking women's path to leadership: the broken rung.
The broken rung is a dynamic that occurs at the beginning of the pipeline — at the first step up from entry-level to manager. At this critical juncture, we see a significant gender disparity in promotion and hiring rates. For every 100 men that are promoted and hired to manager, only 72 women are promoted and hired. This disparity means that men end up holding 62% of manager-level positions, while women hold only 38%.

Read more at cnn.com