The glass ceiling is still holding back 6,000 women from the top 33,000 jobs in Britain, according to new research from the Equal Opportunities Commission. Thirty years after the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act, women are "woefully under-represented" in the country's boardrooms, politics and courts, it says.
Help from nannies has not enabled successful women to maintain their careers after having children, the research suggests. The EOC blames a male-dominated culture in the professions for resistance to flexible working.
The upward trend in the proportion of women in top jobs is "painfully slow", the report says, and in some sectors there is even a decline. The proportion of women in parliament has slipped in the 12 months since the EOC's last Sex and Power survey and is now at 19.5% - lower than in Iraq, Afghanistan and Rwanda.
Despite the successes of women such as Clara Furse, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, and Lady Clark of Calton, who is only one of four female senior judges currently serving, the proportion of women directors of top 100 FTSE companies has dipped to 10.4%, and of female judges to 9.8%.
Jenny Watson, chair of the EOC, said: "Today's troubling findings show just how slow the pace of change has been in powerful British institutions. They suggest it's time not just to send out the headhunters to find some of those 'missing women', but to address the barriers that stand in their way. Thirty years on from the Sex Discrimination Act, women rightly expect to share power. But as our survey shows, that's not the reality.
"We all pay the price when Britain's boardrooms and elected chambers are unrepresentative. Our democracy and local communities will be stronger if women from different backgrounds are able to enjoy an equal voice. In business, no one can afford to fish in half the talent pool in today's intensely competitive world."
In total, the commission identified 33,000 of the country's most influential jobs in the private sector, politics, the legal system and the public sector. To achieve a representative proportion, 6,000 more of those jobs would have to be filled by women, it said.
At the current rate of improvement it would take 20 years to achieve equality in the civil service, 40 years in the judiciary and 60 years among FTSE 100 companies. But it would take 200 years - at least another 40 elections - to achieve an equal number of MPs in parliament. The proportion in the Scottish assembly is nearly 40% and in Wales the figure is 51.7%. The EOC said it was an argument for parties to use all-women shortlists, as in Wales.
But figures for women from ethnic minorities are worse. There are only two black women MPs, four non-white top 100 FTSE directors and nine top civil servants from ethnic minority backgrounds.
"Ethnic minority women are still largely invisible in public life and this has to change if we want our communities to thrive," the report says.
The research suggests that women are experiencing the same barriers to getting the jobs they want as women in lower paid jobs. The pay gap between men and women is 3.7% in their 20s, rising to 10.7% for thirtysomethings, a change which is largely attributed to the impact of childbirth on women's earnings. The same is not true for men who become fathers.
Female workers in the UK suffer one of the biggest pay gaps in Europe - 17% for full-time staff and 38% for part-time - because they are more likely to be in low-paid jobs and then slip further down the career ladder after having children, the Women and Work Commission found last year.
Ms Watson said that women were getting higher up the career ladder but having children still prevented them from getting the top jobs.
"Asking for flexible working still spells career death for too many women in today's workplace, and as a consequence women with caring responsibilities all too often have to 'trade down' to keep working. Extending the right to ask for flexible working to everyone in the workplace would change that culture and enable more women to reach the top," she said.
Katherine Rake, director of the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for equal rights, said: "This demonstrates how much of a male preserve power remains in the UK. If decisions are only being taken by one group of the population they will not reflect the lives of ordinary people. It proves beyond a doubt that life at the top is white and male."
The annual report is the last from the EOC, which is due to be amalgamated with the Commission for Racial Equality and the Disability Rights Commission from next year into a new body called the Commission for Equality and Human Rights.
There have been concerns that the women's rights agenda could be sidelined in the new body, which will be headed by Trevor Phillips, current chair of the CRE.
"There is so much more to be done. This demonstrates that we haven't solved the problem of sex discrimination," said Ms Watson
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