the government of the united kingdom and wbc have addressed women s economic participation through a multilayered approach to systemic and structural causes that need to be taken into account to increase gender equity in the workforce the lack of flexible working arrangements inadequate childcare provision and barriers to career breaks for parental leave or other reasons hinder the advancement of women along the leadership pipeline all of which contribute to discriminatory practice and bias for example new legislation on shared parental leave and flexible working hours aim to institutionalise resources for employees to be able to accommodate career and family responsibilities wbc a