A report came out recently from BofA Merril Lynch global research noting that we are living in a world of economic VUCA – volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity – in 2016.

While we don’t have control over these fluctuations, we can have an influence over the culture we create and encourage in the workplace. And a more equitable one along gender lines can actually be economically beneficial for everyone.

As McKinsey estimated recently, women’s equality can add $12 trillion to global growth. But despite such opportunity, measurable change has been slow.Fewer than 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs and 15% of top senior executives are women.

In response, some companies and whole countries are setting concrete goals. Germany, for instance, implemented a law requiring that at least 30% of all corporate boards’ seats must be held by women.  In other countries, CEOs and chairmen who support gender balance but oppose quotas have signed on to the 30% Club, which supports business-led efforts to achieve the same end. So far, 48 American companies have signed on.

But as Anne-Marie Slaughter, president of think tank New America and author of newly released “Unfinished Business,” points out: corporations’ problem retaining women is often a symptom of a bigger workplace problem that’s affecting everyone: stress, overwork and a lack of flexibility around caregiving.

“The problem is with the workplace, or more precisely, with a workplace designed for the ‘Mad Men’ era, for ‘Leave It to Beaver’ families,” she wrote in a New York Times op-ed. “Our families and our responsibilities don’t look like that anymore, but our workplaces do not fit the realities of our lives.”

But the issues in the workplace cut even deeper.

According to a recent survey of over 200 women called “Elephant in the Valley,”discrimination is still a major problem too. The survey’s lowlights included 90% of women surveyed saying they had witnessed sexist behavior at company events or conferences, and that 47% have been asked to do lower-level tasks that their male colleagues weren’t. 60% also reported unwanted sexual advances, two-thirds of which came from a superior.

But there may be some good news in the fight for a more equitable work place: the pay gap is shrinking.

According to the Pew Research Center, there was a 36 cents per dollar gap between what women made and what men made in 1980. Today? That gap has shrunken to 16 cents. For young women between ages 25-34, the wage gap is even smaller, with women in that age-range making 93% of what men make (compared to just 67% in 1980).

But the study also points out that while the gap has narrowed, it’s also persisted, noting that the pay-gap widens as women get older, perhaps suggesting more needs to be done at the middle management and C-suite levels of corporate structures. The study also reports that women are still mainly responsible for family and child care, resulting in more time off, which could contribute to the persisting pay-gap in the workforce.

What this all says is that more work needs to be done. Fortunately, regardless of gender, we seem to be roughly on the same page that gender equality is a good thing. A majority of both women and men surveyed by the Pew Research Center agree that more needs to be done to bring about gender equality in the work place.