Bengaluru: Two in five future business leaders plan to never disclose their gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, neurodivergence or social class at work, according to a new study by researchers at ESCP Business School.
The study was led by Professor Géraldine Galindo and Vedika Lal at the ESCP Leadership and Inclusive Management Institute, which is recognised as the world’s first business school. It surveyed 576 undergraduate and postgraduate students across ESCP’s London, Paris, Madrid and Turin campuses. It found deep anxiety among workforce entrants about revealing parts of their identity to future employers and colleagues.
Students were asked about five aspects of identity—gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, neurodivergence and social class. Nearly a quarter, 24.3 per cent, said they were neurodivergent.
Respondents were surveyed between September 2025 and February 2026. Seventy-eight per cent were European, and the average age was 21.78 years. Just over half identified as male, 46.7 per cent as female, and 0.3 per cent as non-binary.
Nearly 40 per cent of respondents said they do not plan to disclose their identity at any stage of the employment process. Another 24.3 per cent said they would wait until after being hired. Only 6.4 per cent said they would disclose during a face-to-face interview.
Why the secrecy?
Most students said they expected to be treated well at work. But some feared mistreatment specifically over their neurodivergence or gender identity. Several reported feeling overwhelmed by the burden of managing mental health, neurodivergence and disclosure anxiety simultaneously, particularly while awaiting a formal diagnosis or trying to avoid stigma.
“For years the prevailing narrative has been to ‘bring your whole self to work’, but for young people starting out in the workplace, many are masking or keeping quiet to avoid career penalties,” said Galindo in the ESCP press release. “Disclosing an invisible identity in the current climate is tied to heightened emotional strain and hyper-vigilance rather than relief.”
The study also found that while most respondents say they highly value a company’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, over 76 per cent do not actually check a company’s DEI stance before applying.
“Employers need to ditch all-or-nothing corporate disclosure mechanisms and generic corporate DEI messaging and replace performative statements with measurable action such as clear internal burnout policies,” said Lal. She added that companies need to train line managers to build “day-to-day psychological safety” and implement workplace accommodations directly.
According to World Economic Forum data cited in the study, 10 to 20 per cent of the global population is estimated to be neurodivergent. Between 30 and 40 per cent of neurodivergent adults globally are unemployed, a figure that rises to 85 per cent in the US.
The same data shows 28 per cent of LGBTQI+ workers believe workplace discrimination has worsened over the past five years. Forty-one per cent said they had faced discrimination at work, and 29 per cent said they had left a job because they felt uncomfortable.
The research, titled the Invisible Identities Observatory, was co-authored by Luisa Carrer, Alessandro Ghio, Daniela Lup, Marie-Catherine Mignault, Minna Paunova, Chiara Succi and Olivier Wurtz.