Press releases
Women @ Work 2023: A Global Outlook
Now in its third year, Deloitte's Women @ Work: A Global Outlook offers some glimpses of real improvement. Rates of burnout have dropped. Non-inclusive behaviors have declined. And women are reporting more positive experiences with hybrid work. But despite some improvements over the past year, many women are still not getting what they want or need from their employers.
- This year’s survey reveals some glimpses of improvement for women at work. However, there are still some concerns about women’s mental health even though the burnout rates have dropped significantly.
- Although women are working, and frequently working full time, they have much more responsibility for household chores than their partners. Consequently, women often feel the need to prioritize their partners’ careers over their own.
- Flexibility is crucial as it can be conducive to a more productive way of working as well as increase women’s loyalty to their employer.
- Women who work for organizations that support and promote gender equality are more engaged and have higher levels of well-being and job satisfaction.
In its third year, Deloitte’s Women @ Work: A Global Outlook explores the experiences of 5,000 working women across 10 countries. This year, the responses show some signs of improvement and progress for women in the workplace: rates of burnout have dropped, non-inclusive behaviors have declined, and hybrid work experiences have improved. However, these issues still remain of concern for many as a number of factors have worsened since last year. There has been a significant drop in the number of respondents who feel comfortable sharing and talking about their mental health in the workplace. Quite a lot of women feel unable to switch off from work even at home, in addition to bearing the most responsibility for household tasks. Absence of flexibility at work is one of the most essential points which greatly impacts career decisions—more women worldwide have left their jobs in the past 12 months comparing to 2021 and 2020 combined. One of the main reasons cited is lack of flexibility around working hours.
It is undeniable that women bear the greatest responsibility for household tasks
Even though men are increasingly taking part in household chores, women still bear most of the responsibility for domestic work at home. This doesn’t appear fair given that women are employed the same as men (88% of respondents work full time). Moreover, women oftentimes feel they need to prioritize their partner’s career over their own because their partner is the primary earner and has greater career prospects. Even for women who are primary earners, one in five still feel pressured to prioritize their partner’s career. One more aspect that is indicative of unequal split of responsibilities is childcare. 46% of survey respondents say they do most of the childcare.
Flexibility underpins women’s career choices
This year’s survey findings show a tendency among women to attach crucial importance and high value to flexibility at work. Flexibility around working hours is much more important to women than flexibility around location. Lack of flexibility was one of the top-cited reasons for women who chose to leave their employer in the past 12 months.
Flexible working is a critical expectation for the women in the survey—and a top factor in their career decisions. Yet less than a quarter of women say they have a high degree of flexibility over where and when they work.
When it comes to loyalty to employer in a flexibility context, there is a strong correlation between them. Two-thirds of women who have flexible work arrangements say that they plan to stay with their current employer for more than three years, compared to 19% of women who have no flexibility.
An overwhelming majority of women believe that requesting or taking advantage of flexible working could adversely impact their chances of promotion at work. Almost as many feel it is unlikely that their workload would be adjusted if they moved to a flexible working arrangement.
Women’s health issue still requires attention
Despite some progress in decreasing stress levels and burnout around the world, women still feel unable to switch off from work. Besides, their mental health continues to be a concern. Many women don’t feel that they get adequate mental health support from their employers and, moreover, they don’t feel comfortable to discuss this issue in the workplace. Apart from health, there are other, even broader social problems: 59% of respondents cited the rights of women as their top concern.
Non-inclusive behaviors persist, yet the issue is often silenced
The survey shows a 15% decrease in the number of women who experienced harassment and/or microaggressions in the workplace in 2023 vs. 2022. Although a notable difference is observed in figures over the past years, there is still room for improvement.
This year, 44% of respondent reported experiencing microaggressions to their employer—a significant increase from the 23% who reported in 2022. However, there is a contrary tendency among those who experienced harassment, with only 59% reporting it to their employer versus 66% in 2022. Unfortunately, more than half of women who experienced non-inclusive behaviors did not feel comfortable reporting those experiences to their employers.
Organizations supporting gender equality are more attractive to women in terms of career progression prospects
The respondents who work for gender equality leading organizations say they feel supported by their employer on work/life balance and in career progression. The survey results show that women who work for such organizations are more engaged and have higher levels of well-being and job satisfaction. They also report feeling much more connected to their employer and far more motivated and productive at work.
"Today, gender equality is important not only in terms of the advancement of society and overcoming social injustice. It is also crucial to the reconstruction and further economic development of Ukraine, in particular, for boosting the economic activity to catch up the current lag behind European countries. Even though the state plays a significant role in this matter, employers also have the ability to sway. According to the results of our surveys, flexible work arrangements can contribute to a greater involvement of women in work processes. Another important task is to raise awareness among leaders and teams about the biases and prejudices that might manifest themselves in hiring, performance review, and compensation decisions, and how to avoid them at work. In this way we will lay the groundwork for the development of a more open-minded, forward-thinking and mature Ukrainian society,” says Iakiv Akulov, HCAS Leader, Consulting, Deloitte Ukraine.
Methodology
Between October 2022 and January2023, Deloitte Global conducted a survey of 5,000 women in 10 countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Japan, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States) to learn more about their experiences in the workplace. The survey also aimed to understand the state of gender equality in the workplace from an intersectional lens and the types of actions that employers are taking to support, retain, and empower women within their organizations. Each respondent answered 28 questions about their experience at work; the impact of that experience on their personal life; and the steps their employer is taking to support their career progression and well-being.
