5 Reasons Why Women Still Aren't Getting Ahead At Work At this rate, it will take a century to reach gender parity at the executive level.

Corporate gender diversity is improving, but at a much slower clip than you'd think. Women are still underrepresented in the workplace, but not because they're exiting their companies in droves.

In fact, it's been largely due to cultural attitudes, according to a new study called"Women in the Workplace" released Wednesday from LeanIn.Org, in partnership with McKinsey & Company. The firms gathered data from 118 companies in 2015, including more than 30,000 employees, compared to just 60 companies in a previous 2012 report. 

The study concludes that, at this rate, it would take 25 years in order for U.S. businesses to reach gender parity at senior levels, and more than 100 years for C-Suite levels.

Here are a few key barriers that are preventing women from achieving the stature (and salaries) they deserve:

1. Fewer women are set up for executive promotions.

Although CEOs are most often cherry-picked from "line roles" (positions directly related to the company's broader goals), women in the middle and upper echelons tend to get stuck in staff or supporting roles. That means they're less likely to achieve a top rank.

2. (White) women tend to be less ambitious.

At the outset, men and women are equally hungry for promotions. Still, the higher in ranks that women rise, the less interested they become in continuing to advance.

What's more, women were more likely than men to cite stress as a reason for passing on an executive job offer.

The picture is somewhat different for women of color. Black, Hispanic, and Asian women were 43 percent more interested in becoming a CEO, compared with white women, the study found. (Still, women of color were less interested in the top rank than men of the same ethnicity were.) 

3. Gender diversity is less of a priority for men.  

Although 70 percent of men said that gender diversity is important, just 12 percent agreed that women have fewer opportunities, according to the study. 

What's more, 13 percent of men said they thought that gender-diversity initiatives impede their own ability to advance in the workplace.

4. Women are more likely to be tasked with child care.

In families where both parents worked full-time jobs, nearly half (41 percent) of women reported being tasked with more child care. On average, women were more likely to sacrifice their jobs in order to support their spouse's career. 

5. Women tend to have female networks.

Although the men and women surveyed had about the same number of professional contacts, women were more likely to have a mix of men and women in those networks. Men, by contrast, networked with primarily other men. 

It's no secret that men tend to hold the senior leadership positions, so that puts women at a disadvantage when it comes to advancing professionally.

Source: BY ZO? HENRY Reporter, Inc.