Women in Finance 2025: Progress at the Pipeline, Gaps at the Top

Women are entering academic finance in greater numbers than ever before, and across leading research institutions the share of women among early-career researchers has steadily increased over the past decade. Yet the picture changes sharply higher up the academic ladder: at each step—from PhD student to assistant professor, from associate professor to full professor—the share of women declines, producing a persistent pattern often described as the “leaky pipeline.” Using new data on more than 6,000 finance researchers across 20 countries, this analysis traces how gender representation evolves across academic ranks and how slowly progress reaches the top, highlighting where women are entering the field—and where they are still missing.