Great strides towards equality in the workforce have been made in recent decades. Nevertheless, women remain underrepresented in business leadership roles worldwide, and intriguing variation across the globe and even across industries within the same country suggests that there is more to blame than a monolithic culture of patriarchy. In different countries, women participate in the workforce at different levels and with different roles and expectations. Our survey of business school students and alumni worldwide uncovers some of the factors that affect the careers of women in the global workforce.

It is striking that survey respondents showed virtually no preference for a candidate for promotion based on gender. Equally striking, however, is that respondents were 36% more likely to recommend for promotion the candidate who could be “available to work at any time, including nights and weekends.” Given the disproportionate burden of family work that women bear in most societies, the requirement to be available around the clock can be as starkly negative for women as if employers were biased against women.

This is where things get more interesting. When respondents were told about the productivity for both candidates (high, medium, low), the preference for around-the-clock availability virtually disappears. In jobs and professions in which productivity is hard to attribute to a particular person in a team or process, time availability can become a noisy signal of productivity rather than an input of productivity itself. Cheap proxies for worker evaluation of this kind are costly not only to women, but also to men who may prefer a better career- family or work-life balance. 

Do employers and workers agree about women’s and men’s responsibilities at home? We asked respondents questions both about their “own views” about childcare responsibility and the “views of senior management in [one’s] workplace” as far as they could tell.

Employees on average thought that a mother should be responsible for 55% of childcare, but they believed that “senior management” expected mothers to be responsible for 65% of childcare. Whether or not their employers intend to send these signals, female employees are likely to be on the horns of a dilemma: spending hours at work might help them get promoted, but their boss (and everyone else) may at the same time dislike them for bucking societal expectations. Male employees who choose to invest time in their careers may face less disapproval for reducing time devoted to childcare.

Women are often caught in a double whammy: societies give them a disproportionately large family role and rewards for pleasing personalities, whereas workplaces reward long hours on the job and assertiveness.

Armed with this knowledge, employers can take measures that make for stronger, more attractive workplace environments. Our key findings suggest that the following steps may be helpful:

1. Reward productivity, not hours worked in the office;
2. Support personality differences, acknowledging the value of diversity, and reward non-assertive but effective approaches;
3. Encourage fathers who may want to be more involved in childcare than is assumed in order to counter the perception that childcare is primarily a woman’s responsibility;
4. Use the ability to work remotely to allow for workplace flexibility rather than as a limitless extension of the office. Consider the positive and negative effects of the ability to work remotely on employees. 

Companies that develop a culture that supports women in the workplace also encourage a healthy work-life balance for all employees. Such a culture could prove an advantage in the competition for the best talent