The Brief
- ISACA reports that 47% of women surveyed have experienced gender discrimination at work.
- Overall job satisfaction sits alongside gender gaps in workplace experience.
- The findings describe respondents’ experiences; they do not establish what caused the gaps.
- Employers should examine promotion decisions, working conditions and access to authority.
Gender discrimination in the workplace: ISACA study
An employee can enjoy the work and still have reasons to question her workplace. The latest ISACA study on gender discrimination in the workplace gives employers reason to hold both possibilities in mind before celebrating their next satisfaction score.
The organisation’s 2026 Tech Workplace and Culture survey reports that 76% of respondents are satisfied with their current job. Separately, 47% of women surveyed say they have experienced gender discrimination at work. These figures describe different measures and groups; they do not tell us exactly how many women fall into both categories. They do, however, make a blanket claim of workplace wellbeing difficult to defend.
Liking the technical challenge, the salary or a team does not require someone to approve of every decision made around them. A person can want to stay in a profession while wanting conditions inside it to improve. For employers concerned about women’s representation in technology, that is a useful place to begin.
What a satisfaction score leaves unanswered
The gender gap becomes clearer when the questions get more specific. Satisfaction with workplace culture stands at 52% among women and 65% among men. Work-related stress or burnout is reported by 64% of women and 57% of men. The latter is a combined survey measure, not a clinical diagnosis of burnout.
An organisation looking only at its overall score could miss the experience of a smaller group. Even a positive response from an individual leaves plenty to ask: can she challenge a decision safely? Does she understand how promotion works? Can she get the resources needed to meet her targets?
There is a tempting, dismissive response to findings like these: perhaps women simply complain more. The survey provides no evidence for that explanation. Answering a research question about discrimination is also different from lodging a workplace complaint. Neither tells us how hard someone works.
An employer should investigate a reported problem on its merits. Treating the act of reporting as evidence against the person makes that investigation harder before it has begun.
Look at the decisions behind the experience
Some of the most useful questions concern what employees can actually influence. In its accompanying analysis, ISACA highlights a gap in perceived authority to contribute to company strategy: 53% of women say they have enough, compared with 66% of men.
It does not prove that gender caused every difference. Roles, seniority and organisational structures need examination. It definitely suggests a practical question for leadership teams: Are people with comparable responsibilities given comparable room to make decisions?
Consider a project lead who carries responsibility for delivery but cannot approve additional support. That is a hypothetical example, not a respondent’s account. It shows why a review of job titles alone would be incomplete. The employer would also need to examine budgets, escalation routes and who can authorise a change.
The same care is needed when discussing confidence. Advice to speak up or be more assertive offers little help if the organisation never clarifies what the employee is allowed to decide. The limits of confidence-led empowerment advice deserve attention when the barrier sits within an employer’s own processes.
Give the findings a practical destination
For a technology employer, a manageable response would start with one team or one promotion cycle. HR and the business leader could review how people become eligible for advancement, who receives career-building assignments and how decisions are explained. Include employees who were eligible but never nominated; examining only successful candidates would leave an important part of the process unseen.
The review should ask whether expectations were available in advance and applied consistently. If two people received different opportunities, managers should be able to explain the decision using relevant evidence. Where the records are too thin to support that explanation, improving the process becomes part of the work.
Working conditions deserve a similarly concrete review. Ask which deadlines can move, which tasks can stop and where staffing falls short. An invitation to discuss wellbeing should lead to a decision about the work itself when workload is the problem. Assign an owner and a date for that decision, then tell the team what changed.
Support also needs to remain usable as employees’ circumstances change. Our coverage of workplace support that helps women stay and progress offers another route into that discussion. Individual employer initiatives should still be assessed through their implementation and results, rather than treated as proof of inclusion on their own.
Finally, keep the reporting route credible. Explain who receives feedback, how confidentiality is handled and when someone can expect an update. Report themes and actions without exposing individuals, especially in small teams. A fall in complaints alone cannot establish that conditions improved; employees’ willingness to use the process also needs attention.
ISACA study on gender discrimination in the workplace: The Change in Content view
The useful response to this study begins after the headline has been shared. Choose a decision employees struggle to understand, examine the evidence behind it and explain what will change. Give that work a named owner.
Women should be able to value their careers and speak honestly about their working lives. Employers who ask for that honesty owe them a response worth the effort of giving it.
Editorial note and sources
This analysis draws on ISACA’s published 2026 survey materials and accompanying commentary. Fieldwork covered 1,025 global technology respondents between 17 July and 3 August 2026. The findings are self-reported and should not be presented as India-specific prevalence or proof of causation; the reviewed materials do not provide the subgroup detail needed to assess statistical significance independently. No original interviews were conducted for this article. The practical recommendations are Change in Content’s editorial analysis.
Sources
- ISACA: survey findings and methodology — discrimination finding, sample and fieldwork dates.
- ISACA: 2026 Tech Workplace and Culture survey hub — overall satisfaction and survey resources.
- ISACA: global survey infographic — comparative culture and stress/burnout measures.
- Chasserae Coyne, ISACA: The Authority Gap — Where Gender Meets Decision Rights — attributed commentary on authority.
