Women @ Work 2025, or the deteriorating situation of women in the labor market. Thu. AND

Since when do women actually work? For 100 years? 200? Or maybe, if we look more broadly than the school textbook, they worked forever, only no one counted it? In the public debate, there are always conflicting narratives: some say that women have just “entered” the labor market, others - that they “sat at home”, and still others that “now they have it easy”. To this is added a simple, but extremely misguided advice: “If women want to earn as much as men, let them work as well and as much as they do.”. And although it sounds like a simple remedy, it misses the essential points. The path of women to legal, paid work has been tortuous, variable and, especially in recent centuries, waged by demonstrations, strikes and feminist movements. And the labor market has never been even for all menlet alone women. Privileges such as origin, skin color, sexual orientation or social class have always placed some higher at the start and others lower. When we look at the labor market sociologically - taking into account place of birth, cultural affiliation, education, identity - it quickly becomes clear that external factors can strongly shape our professional destinies and talent alone is not always enough.

Deloitte report: The global deterioration of the position of women in the labour market

As every year, Delotiite has published a study summarizing the situation of women in the global labor market. According to the International Labour Organization Women make up 50.1% of the world's working-age population and represent only 40% of total employment and occupy only 35.4% of the world's managerial positions. In the Deloitte Global 2025 Women @ Work: A Global Outlook, its fifth edition, questions about the labor market 7,500 women working in 15 countries were recruited.. The results show how health, household chores and stereotypes affect their work experience. The key results of the report include data on, among others: women's job satisfaction, burnout and perceived safety at work - these results will be examined more closely in the next part of the article. Today, however, we will focus on the area of health and economics, which have also played a key role in studying the situation of women in the labor market.

However, before we go into detailed conclusions... A brief history of women in the labor market.

The history of women's work has never been uniform. In different eras, they were assigned different roles, but it was not until the 19th and 20th centuries that shaped today's perception of women in the professional market. Rural women have worked pretty much ever since; physically, hard and shoulder to shoulder with men. Meanwhile, women from the upper classes back in the 19th century officially It was forbidden to work because it “did not fall out”. The situation began to change only at the end of this century: women gradually entered professions such as teacher, governor, accountant or photo retoucher. Then came the development of industry and there was factory work, where there were so many hands to work that the factories grew faster eliminating, by necessity, gender bias. However, the real breakthrough was brought by the twentieth century, more precisely, two world wars. When men were drafted into the army, women began to perform their professions. And - to the surprise of many - they did great. After the war, the situation of women varied according to the regime. In communist countries, women worked professionally on an equal footing with men, according to the official social model. In capitalist countries, their position was more often precarious, marginalized or openly discriminated against, especially in “competitive” professions.

It is also necessary to remember that even eminent women did not have it easy. The best example is Maria Skłodowska-Curie - the first woman to win a Nobel and the only double Nobel laureate. And yet even she was not admitted to the French Academy of Sciences. Discrimination against women's academic successes was so common that it lived up to its own name - “Matilda effect” named after Matilda Gage, an American activist who, as early as the 19th century, noticed how the achievements of female scientists were consistently overlooked.

How women's health affects their work

Topics related to female menstruation and menopause still tend to be marginalized or overlooked due to social taboos. However, they affect almost all women, that is, more than half of the population who work and experience a cycle every month, not always proceeding easily and painlessly. According to a report by Deloitte, just under 60% of women rate their physical health and well-being as good or very good. At the same time, about a quarter (24%) struggle with complaints arising from menstruation, menopause or fertility problems. For many of them, daily functioning at work means dealing with severe pain and other symptoms, often without the opportunity to take time off. Although issues related to female biology appear more and more frequently in the public debate, including in the context of menstrual leave or better diagnosis of endometriosis, studies show that women still do not feel confident when talking about their ailments in the workplace. Among those who take leave, many do not feel comfortable informing the supervisor of the real reason for the absence. In practice, only about one in ten respondents believe that their supervisor would know how to respond properly to a conversation about problems related to menstruation or menopause.

Another area of difficulty is issues related to motherhood, including returning to work after leave, often difficult or even impossible. Although 63% of the study participants declare access to paid leave and support in case of premature birth, these are solutions that work mainly in exceptional situations, rather than systemic measures that facilitate women's long-term integration of work with motherhood. The data on the linking of motherhood with work and, in fact, disconnection and systemic discrimination do not give hope for change:

• As many as 58% of mothers believe that after the birth of a child, their career has suffered.
• 43% say explicitly that after returning from parental leave, their access to promotions or key projects has been restricted.
• Only 18% of employers provide any real support in the process of returning to work.

As the portal Perspectives Women in Tech rightly emphasized in its summary so called. 'Motherhood Penalty' or Professional Penalty for Motherhood, remains one of the most persistent and resistant to change in the mechanisms of inequality.

While some women have access to amenities such as flexible working hours or health support, not all of these solutions translate into real benefits. A good example is hybrid work. Despite its growing popularity, only 24% of women declare that they have real freedom to choose where to work. Contrary to corporate declarations, flexibility is therefore often limited and available only to a few. Moreover, 40% of respondents admit that remote work works to their disadvantage; it reduces the chances of promotion, restricts access to prestigious projects or reduces visibility in the organizational structure. As a result, what at the level of communication of companies is presented as modern and pro-development, in practice reveals a clear disconnect between declarations and reality. Assessment systems, promotion processes and day-to-day managerial practices do not keep up with change, so they often overlook people who should be better perceived and rewarded.

Well-being, earnings and... What are women worried about?

Mental well-being at work is a difficult and multidimensional concept. Increasingly, we reduce mental health to individual problems, forgetting that it largely depends on the environment in which we function. Just as vision problems can result from long computer work, back pain from an unadapted desk, and lung problems from exposure to toxic substances, mental health is often the result of working conditions and, more broadly, the entire market.

One of the most interesting parts of the Deloitte report is to show the impact of the “always on” culture, which enforces continuous productivity and constant presence, on the psychological well-being of women. Only the juxtaposition of two data: the assessment of mental overload and the declared well-being, reveals a rather dramatic relationship between the pressure of efficiency and the feeling of being inadequate and dependent on the employer. In this year's study, participants were asked to rate and describe the level of their “mental load”. Almost a quarter of women (22%) rated them as excessively high. The data shows that such levels of stress negatively affect well-being and commitment - Women with a high workload are more likely than those with a lower workload to report poorer well-being, lower productivity and less loyalty to their employer. The report also shows that the fear of losing a professional position or worsening the situation at work if mental health problems are revealed acts as a “whip” to discipline women in the labor market. The most common reason women don't want or feel comfortable disclosing mental health issues as a reason for absenteeism (about 2 in 10 female respondents) is the belief that disclosing them will not provide real support. Other concerns relate to the impact on careers: 16% fear that disclosure will harm their chances of professional development; about one in ten worry about how they will be perceived by a manager; and a similar number fear discrimination or retaliation. Moreover, almost 90% of respondents believe that their manager would have a negative opinion of them if they reported mental health problems.

Economic issues

While health and how we view women's natural biological conditions as taboo or a barrier to work remain key concerns for women workers, the economy is also not doing well.

The feeling of financial security and the rising cost of care are among the most important concerns of women today. Almost half of respondents (47%) indicate that future financial stability is their main concern. In addition, about four in ten women are worried about the rising cost of living and the same amount about expenses related to childcare or dependents. This clearly shows that The role of the caregiver - whether towards children, the elderly or those in need of support - still rests largely with women. For years it was unpaid work and treated as a natural obligation inscribed in the social system; today it does not disappear, but changes form. Yes, women are more likely to work professionally, but just as often they combine full-time work with care work, that is, in practice, they do... double work. From a professional perspective, close to 40% of respondents are concerned about the stability of their job, and about two in ten admit that they are worried about the possibility of artificial intelligence replacing their duties. These are further signs of the lack of job stability, but also the fear of changes introduced by new technologies.

However, this is not all. In the next part of the article we will look at the remaining results of the report Women @ Work 2025.

Sources:

1. https://ccsint.com/pl/blog/krotka-historia-kobiet-w-miejscu-pracy/
2. https://czasemancypantek.pl/w-spoleczenstwie/praca
3. https://womenintech.perspektywy.org/women-work-2025-globalny-obraz-pogarszajacych-sie-warunkow-pracy-kobiet/
4. https://www.deloitte.com/content/dam/assets-shared/docs/collections/2025/deloitte-women-at-work-2025-a-global-outlook.pdf?dlva=2