Going Unnoticed: The Systematic Exclusion of Black Women over 35

As we celebrate Black History Month in the UK, it is vital to reflect not only on historical struggles but also on the ongoing, nuanced challenges of inclusion in the workplace.

Groundbreaking new data from Included reveals a concerning trend: Black women over 35 experience significantly higher exclusion across key dimensions of workplace experience. This finding has profound implications for organisations striving to create equitable environments.

Using data collected by Included from over 20,000 respondents spanning 40 countries, this analysis highlights the systematic disparities being faced by a specific group that organisations must address.

We have asked each person multiple questions which allowed us to form a score for how included they felt across 7 categories:

1. Experiences of Microaggressions
2. Perceived Transparency & Objectivity in personnel decisions
3. Perceived Transparency & Objectivity in salary decisions
4. Perceived importance of ‘fitting in’
5. Psychological safety in teams
6. Psychological safety with leaders
7. Perceived importance of diverse recruitment

What does the data tell us?

The data reveals a stark reality: Black women over 35 consistently score lower than other demographic groups across all 7 critical inclusion measures, including experiences of microaggressions, perceived transparency in decision-making, and psychological safety.

Other research, such as the 2023 McKinsey report on workplace diversity and their 2024 report on Women in the Workplace, similarly highlighted the systemic challenges faced by Black women in leadership roles.  The Race at Work report by Business in the Community also underscored how Black women are less likely to see career progression.  This data adds to this research by quantitatively showing when this drop-off in inclusion is happening in Black women’s careers.

And this drop-off does seem to be happening around age 35, and specifically for Black women. When comparing to other racial groups and age groups, we see that this experience is unique to Black women over 35.

Why is this happening?

Organisations often suggest they believe specifically Black women aren’t being included as much. But our data tells that this can also be specified by age.

There could be several reasons for this disparity, and certainly those reasons could vary by organisation. A positive spin on it may be that the newer generations are feeling more involved and less discriminated against as a result of generational progress of inclusivity. This has certainly been the case with some of our clients, where the focus on Black women’s inclusion has only begun recently and it’s taking time to shift both the experiences and opinions of longer-tenured employees.

However, a less positive explanation may be that young Black women come into the workforce hopeful of a more equitable culture than their elders experienced, but are having their hopes dashed by the time they are reaching the primes of their careers and seeing their progression stalled.

Sadly, other research seems to suggest the latter is more common. Research from Harvard Business Review indicates that women of color face greater challenges as they advance in their careers, including isolation, bias in promotion decisions, and a lack of mentorship and sponsorship.

By running the Inclusion Diagnostic, we have been able to quantitatively show how these specific issues – particularly the lack of access to and psychological safety with leaders – have been prohibiting the progression of Black women with some client organisations. And once highlighted, we’ve been able to implement programming to directly combat that exclusion.

What can we do?

The case is clear, there are differences in the employee experience and indeed treatment, and Black women over 35 lose out. Here are 5 things you can do within your organisation to accelerate change:

• Understand – where the barriers and opportunities are within your firm. Collect both inclusion AND equity data, and look at what the data tells you. Without it, you risk implementing interventions that don’t actually get to the heart of the issues in your organisation, making your EDI work less effective, less efficient, and less sustainable.

• Review – your policies and procedures with an inclusion lens. We all have biases individually, but they’re much less likely to come into play when our policies and procedures account for them. If our policies and practice don’t mitigate our biases, they can have significant effects on our organisations, particularly when it comes to talent management. The stark number of organisations that have bias baked into their talent management processes is exceptionally high.

• Sponsor – don’t just mentor. Sponsorship is much more active than mentorship. Sponsorship relationships are driven by the leader not just providing advice for their sponsees, but actually creating opportunities for their sponsees to advance their careers. Sponsors open up their networks, invest in their sponsees’ success, and are willing to fight for their sponsees.

• Give feedback equitably – and notice who you’re giving feedback to. Most of us don’t realise that we tend to give more feedback (positive and constructive) to members of majority groups. Minoritised employees just tend to get less feedback overall. It’s so common an issue, it has its own name: The Thin File problem.

• Map out – inclusive talent pathways for your organisation. By highlighting how minoritised individuals, especially Black women over 35, have attained leadership positions in your firm you show your employees that there really is a progression pathway.This should include sharing their full career paths, the barriers they faced at different stages, and how they overcame those barriers.

There’s obviously more that can and should be done, depending on points 1 and 2. For example, prioritising inclusive benefits, integrating inclusion as a leadership competency, etc; but hopefully this is a starting point to accelerating progress.

At Included, we specialise in actionable insights that drive organisational change. Contact us to learn how we can partner with your leadership team to create a more equitable future for all employees.

By valuing and supporting individuals, your organisation can better your people’s experiences at work and unlock the full potential of your workforce.