Women’s progress at work appears to be stalling

Jul 5th 2026|4 min read

WOMEN HAVE made extraordinary gains in the past few decades across the rich world. They now outnumber men on university campuses in virtually every wealthy country. At work, many have been enthusiastically “leaning in”, as Sheryl Sandberg, then Facebook’s second-in-command, urged them to do in a book in 2013. Their representation among the highest-paying professions, including doctors and lawyers, has nearly tripled in America since 1980. At the turn of the century a British patient was twice as likely to see a man. Last year the number of female physicians exceeded those of men for the first time, according to Britain’s General Medical Council, a public body.