Not sure what their definition of manager/middle manager might be. The assertions could be true if they’re including, say, shift supervisors in a fast-food restaurant, but not if they’re looking for larger and more autonomous management positions. For example, a friend of mine recently completed a study of women in sales, and found that relatively few women move into sales management positions in corporations. Successful saleswomen tend to either stay in pure sales jobs (in which they can often make more money than in first-level sales management) or leave and start their own companies. If you look at corporate management jobs in manufacturing, engineering, IT, distribution/logistics, etc, the presence of women is considerably less than 50%.