Access to Leadership Positions and Career Trajectories for Georgian and American Women (XX–XXI)

Abstract

This article examines how women in Georgia and the United States have gained wider access to education and paid employment while continuing to encounter uneven access to leadership positions and interrupted career trajectories. The study adopts a qualitative comparative literature review and policy analysis, drawing on recent international reports, national statistical materials, and scholarly research on gendered organizations, role congruity, care work, and flexible work. The article argues that leadership inequality is not caused by a simple shortage of qualified women; rather, it is reproduced through organizational expectations, unequal care responsibilities, promotion cultures, occupational segregation, regional inequalities, and the unequal valuation of flexibility. The comparison shows that the United States presents a highly developed corporate pipeline with measurable gains in senior leadership, yet persistent barriers at the first step into management and continuing racialized and caregiving penalties. Georgia, by contrast, presents a more transitional labor market, where formal equality exists alongside enduring patriarchal norms, uneven regional opportunity, limited care infrastructure, and restricted access to high-quality employment. Across both contexts, flexible and hybrid work may support women’s labor-force continuity, but without transparent evaluation systems and intentional leadership pathways, it can also reduce visibility, sponsorship, and promotion opportunities. The article concludes that sustainable equality in leadership requires not only individual ambition or educational attainment but institutional redesign: transparent promotion criteria, accessible childcare, gender-responsive labor policy, mentorship and sponsorship systems, pay transparency, and protection against flexibility stigma.