Impact of Glass Ceiling on the Performance of Managerial Women

Impact of Glass Ceiling on the Performance of Managerial Women

Introduction

'Glass Ceiling' has proved as a major obstacle in the progression of female employees and managerial women. It has emerged as a significant problem in the corporate world, invariably holding back women from advancing in their career ladder to attain greater clout and success. 'Glass Ceiling', as the name suggests, is a transparent and indiscernible ceiling or barrier planted, pre-dominantly subconsciously, in the corporate world beyond which the promotion of women in the professional and managerial jobs is widely and strongly resisted. The concept was publicized in the 1980's as the element that blocks the access of professional and managerial women to the top position in the hierarchy or the board. It is noticed in the corporate world and mostly in that of developed economies that women are not placed in the top management to represent the corporation and large businesses (Snowdon, 2011). The problem is further intensified when this is openly done despite the corporations' claims of gender diversity and equal employment opportunity complier.

The practice which more precisely denotes the vestiges of the medieval chauvinistic era is not relevant in this advanced era, where studies have reported that women are responsible for major purchasing decisions and represent majority of consumers. Regardless of the fact that they are women who have led 68 countries through performing in the capacity of either president or prime minister, the practice continues to be widely used by corporations and organizations. Though it is now located at higher level than before; which is indicated by women attaining third of the managerial positions in the middle management, undue blockage of women's career path to attain leadership role is against organizational and ethical principles.

Discussion

Since the year 2001, the situation pertaining to progression of women being hampered by Glass Ceiling has not improved significantly. Global Employment Trends published by International Labor Organization reports lower participation rate of women in the labor market, higher unemployment rates in addition to significant unfavorable pay differences when compared with their male counterpart. It further reported that women comprise approximately 40% of the global workforce.

Occupational segregation which is effectively denoted by Glass Ceiling is a direct result of cultural and social attitudes which pre-dominantly describes the constituting components of male and female jobs. This differs from country to country and across the industry. As mentioned above, these cultural and social attitudes are precisely the vestiges of chauvinistic era which are now creating hindrance for professional and managerial women. Women are being targeted for Horizontal occupational segregation as well as the Vertical Occupational Segregation. Horizontal segregation is evident through the concentration of women in more feminized occupations as nursing and teaching and the likes. Vertical Occupational Segregation prevails as women are not elevated in their job description and are made to work in the lower categories as compared to their male counterpart.

Although women have started to take inroads into more contemporary and non-traditional ...