Andrea Mandell

USA TODAY

Women still struggle to gain access to the top jobs in Hollywood.

And it's getting worse, not better. A new study released Thursday finds that just 7% of the 250 highest-grossing films of 2016 were directed by women.

Doors continue to close for professional women in Hollywood, finds the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, which reports the rate of female directors was down 2% from last year. In fact, the 2016 statistics are on par with those of 1998.

Additionally, 35% of films employed either no women or only one woman director, writer, producer, executive producer, editor or cinematographer.

Martha M. Lauzen, executive director of the center and author of the latest report, titled The Celluloid Ceiling, calls the lack of progress remarkable, given last year's federal investigation of possible discrimination against female directors in film and TV, plus increased attention to diversity in recent years.

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The dispiriting numbers prove recent efforts "such as the mentoring and shadowing programs, are simply too meager to create the kind of shift that is needed,” she says.

In other roles, women accounted for just 13% of writers, 17% of executive producers and editors, 24% of producers and 5% of cinematographers.

Women composers were even worse off, with just 3% representation.

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None of this is news to those who work in the industry. "(Hollywood) is a patriarchy, headed by men and built for men," said director Ava DuVernay late last year. "To pretend like Hollywood is anything other than that is disingenuous."

At Cannes Film Festival last year, just three films (out of 20) helmed by women competed for the festival's top prize, the Palme d’Or — and that was progress.

Out of those films, Maren Ade's German dramedy Toni Erdmann, is today the leading contender for the best-foreign-film category in the Oscars race.

The new study surfaces as pay disparity continues to make headlines in Hollywood. This week, Natalie Portman revealed Ashton Kutcher was paid three times what she was for their 2011 romantic comedy, No Strings Attached.

"I wasn't as (mad) as I should have been. I mean, we get paid a lot, so it's hard to complain, but the disparity is crazy," she told Marie Claire.

Portman directed her first feature, A Tale of Love and Darkness, last year.

"I don’t think women and men are more or less capable," said the actress. "We just have a clear issue with women not having opportunities. We need to be part of the solution, not perpetuating the problem."