The Paradox of Meritocracy
Women enter the workforce in large numbers but remain underrepresented in leadership. In the EU, they account for 46.4% of employment but only 34.8% of managers — and less than 10% of CEOs in large listed companies. A similar pattern is observed globally.
One widely embraced answer is meritocracy. The idea — reflected, for example, in recent EU initiatives — is that if hiring and promotion are based on transparent, performance-based criteria, gender disparities should naturally disappear. If the best performers rise, outcomes should be fair.
But do meritocratic systems work as expected?
Performance Culture and the Female Pipeline
While many firms are actively trying to increase the share of women in their workforce, the mechanisms that shape women’s career progression remain poorly understood. In our study, “Does a High-Performance Culture Fix the Leaky Pipeline? A Closer Examination of Performance-Driven Talent Management Practices,” we examine how performance management systems influence hiring, promotion and retention. A key feature of many modern organizations is a “high-performance culture,” where employees are systematically evaluated, ranked, rewarded and promoted based on measurable outcomes. These performance-driven talent management practices are designed to identify top performers and reward them, while removing or reassigning lower performers.
Such systems should reduce bias and support gender equality: by tying advancement closely to observable performance, they promise a level playing field where decisions are less influenced by subjective judgment or discrimination. Yet we find evidence of a more complex reality. Firms that rely more heavily on performance-driven talent management practices tend to attract more women into junior roles. These environments signal fairness and opportunity, making them appealing to ambitious early-career professionals. However, this initial advantage does not seem to persist. As employees move up the corporate hierarchy, the share of women declines more sharply in these firms. In other words, the pipeline starts strong but becomes “leakier” at higher levels.
The Paradox of Promotions
Crucially, our results unveil that this pattern is not primarily driven by women leaving these organizations. Instead, it reflects differences in advancement. Women in performance-driven environments are, on average, less likely to be promoted into senior roles. They are also less likely to be hired into senior positions. The result is a paradox: systems designed to reward merit may still produce unequal outcomes.
Why might this happen? The answer lies in factors that go beyond formal meritocracy. High-performance systems often reward constant availability, long working hours and uninterrupted career paths. For female employees, these expectations may align with early career stages but can become harder to sustain over time, particularly when women take on greater responsibilities outside of work, such as family and childcare — responsibilities that still disproportionately fall on women.
Beyond Performance: Hidden Biases and Norms
At the same time, what counts as “high performance” is also not entirely neutral. In many high-performance cultures, advancement depends not only on results but also on how those results are demonstrated. Traits such as assertiveness, self-promotion and competitiveness — often associated with traditional masculine norms — tend to be more visible and more strongly rewarded. This can systematically advantage men, while disadvantaging women who may be less inclined, or less encouraged, to engage in these behaviors, especially in competitive and male-dominated environments.
When it comes to women’s representation throughout the corporate hierarchy, focusing solely on performance metrics without considering how they are defined, evaluated and experienced may unintentionally reinforce the very gaps they are meant to close. Understanding how organizations evaluate, promote and support employees is essential to fixing the persistent — and often hidden — leaks in the pipeline to leadership.
