New MIT Sloan research finds a “Bamboo Ceiling” for ethnic Chinese men in the UK
An analysis of executives at FTSE-listed companies and more than 322,000 UK Biobank participants finds lower leadership attainment among ethnic Chinese men
Cambridge, MA, Oct. 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In the UK, people of Asian descent are often described as a “model minority,” reflecting strong educational and economic outcomes. New research from the MIT Sloan School of Management and collaborators finds that this broad “Asian” label obscures a leadership gap: ethnic Chinese men are less likely to attain leadership positions than ethnic Indian and white men.
“The Bamboo Ceiling in the UK: Ethnicity–Gender Intersectionality, Risk Tolerance, and Leadership Attainment,” published in Personnel Psychology, was co-authored by MIT Sloan professor Jackson G. Lu; Qian Li, Shuang Liang, and Wanqin Mu of Beijing Foreign Studies University; and Shiyang Gong of Beijing Normal University.
Whereas prior research by Lu has examined the Bamboo Ceiling in US contexts, the current research is among the first to reveal a Bamboo Ceiling in the UK. The researchers conducted two complementary studies. The first tracked CEOs and CFOs at FTSE companies over 14 years. The second analyzed leadership attainment among 322,734 UK Biobank participants. Whereas researchers and practitioners often treat Asians as a single group, Lu’s studies distinguished between ethnic Chinese (the UK’s largest East Asian group) and ethnic Indians (the UK’s largest South Asian group).
“When organizations treat Asians as one group, the aggregate numbers can look reassuring even when a particular subgroup faces a serious barrier,” Lu said. “Disaggregating the data revealed a leadership gap that would otherwise have remained hidden.”
How did the researchers identify the Bamboo Ceiling in the UK?
The first study revealed that, from 2011 through 2024, no ethnic Chinese individual served as CEO or CFO at FTSE 100 companies. After accounting for each group’s share of the UK working population, ethnic Indian rates did not differ significantly from white rates.
If the researchers had combined ethnic Chinese and Indians, however, the resulting “Asian” group would have appeared statistically similar to whites in both CEO and CFO representation. A broader analysis of FTSE 350 companies produced the same general pattern: only one ethnic Chinese person served as CEO during the 14-year period, and the ethnic Chinese CEO attainment rate was 73% to 77% lower than the rates for ethnic Indians and whites.
The second study moved beyond top corporate executives to a nationwide analysis. Overall, ethnic Chinese participants had 18% lower odds of attaining leadership positions than ethnic Indian or white participants. The difference was concentrated among men: ethnic Chinese men had 35% lower odds of leadership attainment than ethnic Indian and white men, while leadership attainment did not differ significantly among women from the three ethnic groups. Women overall had 54% lower odds of leadership attainment than men.
Risk tolerance partly accounted statistically for the ethnic gap among men. In the UK Biobank, ethnic Chinese participants scored lower on risk tolerance than ethnic Indian and white participants, and more risk-tolerant people were more likely to hold leadership roles within every ethnic and gender group studied. The findings remained consistent after accounting for factors including age, education, nativity status, neighborhood income, region, English ability, age at immigration, and occupation.
“The point is not that ethnic Chinese employees lack leadership potential,” Lu said. “The results suggest that leadership systems in the UK may reward a risk-tolerant profile. Capable individuals whose styles do not match that profile may be overlooked.”
What do these findings suggest about leadership pipelines more broadly?
The findings suggest that employers should examine who is missing from their leadership pipelines. The researchers recommend that organizations collect and analyze disaggregated ethnic data and track promotion and advancement rates by subgroup. Aggregate statistics can conceal disparities, making targeted responses difficult.
The authors also encourage employers to broaden their definitions of leadership potential and develop pathways that recognize different leadership styles and risk preferences. Risk tolerance can be useful in some contexts, they note, but uniformly favoring it may cause organizations to overlook leaders whose judgment and approach could be valuable in other situations.
“Disaggregating the data is only the first step,” Lu said. “Organizations should also ask whether their ideas about leadership are too narrow and whether their promotion systems recognize people who lead effectively in different ways.”
Attachment
Casey Bayer MIT Sloan School of Management 914.584.9095 bayerc@mit.edu Patricia Favreau MIT Sloan School of Management 617.595.8533 pfavreau@mit.edu
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