Gender Equality at the Top

Why Women Remain Underrepresented in Leadership in Mauritian Institutions

Abstract

Women’s underrepresentation in leadership remains a persistent global challenge despite improvements in women’s education, labour-force participation and gender-equality policies. This challenge is particularly pronounced in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) due to their persistent socio-cultural and patriarchal norms and institutional constraints. The existing research in Mauritius, as in other SIDS remains hugely fragmented and sectoral. Thus, addressing this gap, Mauritius provides an important context for examining these dynamics as despite its gender parity in education women remain underrepresented in leadership positions. This study empirically examines interconnected structural and systemic barriers associated with women’s progression into leadership positions in Mauritian institutions through a comprehensive literature review leading to nine theoretically derived hypotheses. A quantitative, cross-sectional, non-experimental survey design was employed using a structured five-point Likert-scale questionnaire that was administered to women professionals in Mauritian Institutions through convenience and snowball sampling. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics, one-sample t-tests, Pearson correlation analysis and multiple linear regression. The findings indicate that respondents significantly perceived all eight proposed structural and systemic barriers as constraints on women’s leadership progression, with the stronger influence of systemic constraints such as male-dominated toxic organisational culture, gender bias and prejudice, sexual harassment, and structural impediments such as lack of flexible working arrangements and limited support from organizational decision makers receiving particularly strong agreement. Correlation findings also suggests that weak institutional support is not an isolated organisational issue, but is connected to prevailing broader patriarchal and socio-cultural structures. In, contrast, H8 ‘women lack leadership aspirations’ was rejected, revealing a distinctive divergence from the otherwise consistent pattern of empirical support across the proposed relationships. This formed a critical juncture of the study. Multiple linear regression and regression ANOVA regression were subsequently employed to investigate the rejected hypothesis. The systemic-barrier regression model was statistically significant, F (4, 91) = 15.561, p < .001, explaining 45.7% of the variance in responses to the aspiration-deficit outcome (adjusted R² = .427). However, the systemic predictors were more influential collectively than individually, with no isolated predictor demonstrating a statistically significant unique contribution. Therefore, suggesting that women’s leadership aspirations are not a standalone deficit, but a complex perceptual variable shaped by the interconnected systemic and institutional environment in which they operate. Thus, the findings underscore the need to move towards holistic systemic, coordinated and institution-wide policy reforms that address gender bias, harassment, patriarchal attitudes, dismantle structural barriers, transform male-dominated organisational cultures, offer workplace flexibility, leadership sponsorship and create equitable pathways for women’s progression into senior leadership roles. This study advances limited scholarship within Mauritius and comparable Small Island Developing States.