Women’s Experiences of Work and Leadership in Mexico: Structural and Emotional Barriers Across Sectors

Abstract

Women remain underrepresented in senior roles in Mexico despite important progress in education and labour-market participation. Research on gender and work has often examined structural barriers in organizations and labour markets separately from emotional barriers such as self-doubt or fear of failure. Drawing on Acker’s concept of gendered organizations, this paper explores how these barriers come together in women’s experiences of work and leadership in Mexico. The study uses data from a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2024–2025 with 1,020 professional women from education, health, financial services, technology, retail, and other sectors. Participants held roles ranging from early-career positions and entrepreneurship to middle management, directorships, and senior executive positions. The survey included socio-demographic questions, a checklist of emotional obstacles reported as either already overcome or not yet overcome, and open-ended questions about relevant workplace experiences. The findings show that women frequently report self-doubt, fear of failure, pressure linked to traditional family expectations, work-care tensions, and the need to constantly prove competence in male-dominated environments. Several of these obstacles appear in both response categories, suggesting that they do not simply disappear but often return at different moments in a woman’s career. Age comparisons indicate that self-doubt and fear of failure are more common among younger respondents, while qualitative responses show that senior women also continue to face isolation, bias, and work-family tensions. The paper contributes evidence from Mexico to the gender and work literature by showing that structural and emotional barriers are closely connected. It also suggests that leadership-development efforts should move beyond a “fix the woman” approach and pay more attention to organizational culture, evaluation systems, and support structures.