Lagarde: Organizational change key to women's leadership

ECB President Lagarde identified two key barriers that cause the leadership pipeline to narrow for women, even as legal obstacles diminish.

In France's public hospitals, for instance, 80% of staff are female, but only 25% are directors.

This pattern begins early: for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 93 women advance.

The first barrier is 'availability', where rewards go to those working long, unpredictable hours.

Nobel laureate Claudia Goldin's work shows women's earnings diverge after childbirth, as one partner often takes on flexible care roles, typically women.

The second barrier is 'promotability', where women are more often assigned low-visibility tasks that do not lead to career advancement, such as serving on committees or organising logistics.

Lagarde emphasized that systemic change, not just individual role models, is crucial.

Organizations hold two levers: how they measure commitment and how they distribute opportunity.

Commitment should embrace flexibility, not oppose it.

Lowering the cost of being away, through policies like the ECB's core hours and remote work, allows for greater freedom without undermining productivity.

Opportunity means fairly allocating career-building tasks and setting clear gender targets across all hierarchy levels.

The ECB has implemented such targets, seeing women in senior management rise to nearly 40%, an eight percentage point increase since 2019.