Women in Leadership: Are We Asking the Right Question?

The “glass ceiling” remains a widely used metaphor to describe the structural barriers that prevent qualified women from advancing to leadership positions. Evidence from a recent Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) publication shows the persistence of these challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean and summarizes the latest data and findings on women’s representation in leadership roles. 

I recently attended an academic conference on women’s leadership, where these issues took center stage. Discussions explored the benefits for society of increasing women’s representation in leadership positions, the barriers that women face to climb up the leadership ladder, and the evidence on policies that can help overcome these obstacles. 

From an economic perspective, there are compelling arguments for promoting women’s leadership. Women leaders may bring different experiences and perspectives that influence decision-making and policy priorities. They can also serve as role models, inspiring girls and younger women to pursue opportunities in fields and positions where they have traditionally been underrepresented. 

More fundamentally, leadership potential is not determined by gender. When societies systematically limit women’s access to positions of influence, they fail to fully utilize available talent and reduce their potential for innovation, productivity, and growth. In short, everyone loses.

Below, I share some of the key takeaways from the conference, including contributions from speakers and IDB colleagues Diana Rodríguez and Luciana Etcheverry. 

Oriana Bandiera from the London School of Economics opened her remarks with a provocative question:  

We ask whether women can do the jobs traditionally done by men. But can men do the jobs traditionally done by women?

Her point was that much of women’s contribution to society remains invisible in economic statistics because it takes the form of unpaid care work. And yet, families, communities, economies and social wellbeing rely on it. 

This question matters because the economic case for women’s participation in the labor force is often framed in terms of expanding the production possibilities frontier. Especially at a time when our region is experiencing rapid ageing and the working-age population is growing more slowly that it did few decades ago. In this context, increasing women’s labor force participation is frequently presented as one of the strongest economic arguments for sustaining growth and expanding productive capacity.

However, Bandiera’s argument shifts the discussion in a different direction. She argues that both paid and unpaid work come at the expense of leisure. At the end, the binding constraint is the number of hours in a day that individuals, both men and women, can devote to work. 

Yet many policies focus on bringing more women into STEM fields and leadership roles, while far fewer seek to attract men into care-related jobs. She highlighted some recent research on incentives designed to bring more men into the care sector, which I summarized in a recent blog post.

Ultimately, as more women enter the labor force and advance within it, the supply of unpaid care work traditionally provided by women is likely to decline. Therefore, part of the economic gains must come from a better allocation of talent: not only by bringing more female talent into leadership positions, but also by attracting more male talent into care-related occupations. 

Beyond documenting these barriers through research, the IDB is actively working to address them. Through initiatives such as the Women’s Leadership Program in Honduras, the IDB is strengthening leadership skills among women in mid-level positions across the public and private sectors. 

The program focuses on building confidence, communication, and decision-making skills, recognizing that leadership is not an innate trait but one that can be developed through training, mentorship, and practice. This work responds directly to the structural, cultural, and individual barriers that continue to limit women’s access to leadership roles in Latin America and the Caribbean, demonstrating how targeted interventions can help unlock women’s leadership potential.

The academic conference offered important insights that resonate closely with both the Latin America and the Caribbean region and the work of international financial institutions (IFIs), such as the IDB. Michelle Rao presented the results of empirical work conducted with Eeshani Kandpal on female representation in top economic adviser roles within government teams across 23 countries in Latin American and the Caribbean over nearly six decades. Their findings were striking: women occupied these positions in only 5% of cases. 

Moreover, there is little evidence of a trend suggesting that this is changing. Within IFIs, only three: the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have ever had a woman serve as president. In original research, Kandpal and her coauthors document that no IFI has achieved balanced representation of women in senior leadership positions. I’m proud to say that the IDB ranks at the top, with women holding 44.6% of these positions. 

The path to leadership roles and career growth often runs through visible and influential portfolios, and the barriers frequently begin there. While there is parity at entry-level technical positions, the pipeline remains leaky, with women falling behind as they progress through their careers. 

As key actors in promoting inclusive growth globally and across the region, IFIs are also important norm setters and can play a demonstration role for governments in showing what leadership and influence can look like. 

I close with a reflection shared by Yasmin Madan during the conference’s opening session. As development practitioners, we should not have to keep making an economic case for women’s participation. After all, we never made a case for men’s. There is intrinsic value in women’s participation in leadership and decision making because it influences both what and how resources are allocated and policies are designed. And that argument should be enough.