Women have entered the workplace in increasing numbers during the past two decades in all developed and developing countries. This trend has paralleled women's pursuit of education, particularly education in the professions such as business management, engineering, computer science and technology. Women have made great strides in entering professional and entry-level managerial jobs (Adler and Izraeli, 1988, 1994).

The International Labour Organization (ILO) (2004b) reported recent information in 2004. They concluded the following. The proportion of women in the labor force continues to increase. These participation rates, however, are uneven (e.g., East Asia, eighty-three women in the workforce for every 100 men, Middle East, forty women in the workforce for every 100 men). Female unemployment rates worldwide were slightly higher than those of males, but again there was considerable regional variability. Females were less likely to be in regular wage and salaried employment than men. Women who worked were more likely to work in agriculture and services. Women earned less income than men, a gap that has decreased only marginally and slowly. Countries having higher rates of female participation in the workforce also had lower birth rates

Women in management research is now increasingly being conducted in a greater number of countries reflecting both the globalization of business and the international competition for talent and the increasing numbers of women pursuing professional and managerial careers (davidson and Burke, 2000; Burke and Nelson, 2001). Cross-cultural research on women in management issues, however, still remains an under-researched and under-developed area of study (Cahoon and Rowney, 2000).

What do the numbers show?

Although some had predicted that women would achieve the ranks of senior executive leadership by now, the reality is that few women had reached senior management.