Glass Ceiling

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Glass Ceiling

The Glass Ceiling is a term describing an unofficially acknowledged barrier to one's advancement in their profession, especially affecting women and minorities.[1] The metaphor was initially used by feminists to describe obstacles that women faced in attempting to advance into senior management positions, but the term is also now used for general inequality that minorities face, trying to advance in a profession.[2] Bamboo Ceiling is an example of derivative of the glass ceiling that impede a career progression of Asian-Americans.[3]

Definition

The term ceiling is a metaphor that describes the obstacles that distracts an individual (more specifically women or minorities) from advancing in their career. Also, as there is no visible existence of such distractions, the term glass is used. In short, although there is no official policy that prevents one from obtaining a higher position, there is an invisible wall or barrier that prevents one from their advancement.[4]

David Cotter has defined the glass ceiling as follows:[5]

  • "A gender or racial difference that is not explained by other job-relevant characteristics of the employee."
  • "A gender or racial difference that is greater at higher levels of an outcome than at lower levels of an outcome."
  • "A gender or racial inequality in the chances of advancement into higher levels, not merely the proportions of each gender or race currently at those higher levels."
  • "A gender or racial inequality that increases over the course of a career."

Cotter has found a strong positive relationship between gender and the glass ceiling, but also notes that there is no evidence for the existence of glass ceiling for African-American men.

Statistics

The existence of glass ceiling is hard to obtain concrete evidence on, as Cotter defined, because glass ceiling indicates a social phenomena that is too ambiguous to measure for statistically meaningful data. The glass ceiling is not just a comparison between male and female employment rate. The pre-condition that both male and female are not distinguishable from one another, except for their biological sex, has to be satisfied in order to have a statistically meaningful result.[6] Therefore, it is currently impossible to have a solid evidence on the existence of the glass ceiling. However, most "glass ceiling model" uses general inequality indexes to define the existence of the glass ceiling.[5] Although it is impossible to measure the ceiling directly, the continuing usage of the term that was created in the 1970s [7] indicates the possibility of its existence.

Gender Inequality Index (GII)

Gender Inequality Index, published by UNDP, is a complex index that substitutes both Gender Empowerment Measure(GEM) and Gender-related Development Index(GDI). GII measures gender inequalities through three aspects of human development - reproductive health, empowerment, and economic status, by "maternal mortality ratio and adolescent birth rates", "proportion of parliamentary seats occupied by females and proportion of adult females and males with at least secondary education", and "labour force participation rate of female and male populations aged 15 years and older", respectively.[8] The GII is interpreted as a percentage (ranging from 0 to 1, with 0 being 0% inequality and 1 being 100%) and indicates the percentage of potential human development lost due to gender inequality. The world average score on the GII is 0.451 in 2014 (0.136 for Canada). It reflects a percentage loss of 45.1% in achievement across the three dimensions due to gender inequality.[9]

Gender Gap Index (GGI)

Gender Gap Index, also known as Global Gender Gap Report, is an index measuring gender equality. GGI is published by the World Economic Forum. Similar to GII, the index examines four areas of inequality between genders - economics participation and opportunity rate, educational attainment, political empowerment, and health.[10] From 2006, the index has confirm the existence of a gap and states that no country in the world has achieved gender equality; however, in 2014, the gaps on average were closed significantly across each of the categories. (Health by 96%, Education by 94%, Economic participation by 60% and political empowerment by 21%)[11]

Gender Pay Gap

See also : OECD Gender Pay Gap Statistics

Wage differential in terms of gender obviously exists in today's society. In 2008, OECD(Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) conducted a research on the wage differential between men and women. According to the research, male regular workers were paid 17% more than female regular workers. Also, based on the research the European Commission conducted on 27 member states of the European Union in 2008, the hourly wage of females is 17.5% lower than that of males.[12] The gender pay gap is likely to be affected by gender-specific policies such as the equal opportunity and anti-discrimination laws and the childcare policy.[13] According to OECD Gender Pay Gap research, based on OECD employment database 2014, the OECD average rate of pay gap was 18.221% in 2000, 16.493% in 2005, 15.345% in 2010, and 15.464% in 2013, which indicates that the gender pay gap has been decreasing over time but not significantly for the past 5 years. South Korea was ranked the first with 36.60%, Canada recorded 18.97%, and US recorded 17.91%, where OECD's average was 15.464%.[14]

Glass Ceilings and Maternal Walls

An additional way to think about gender-based discrimination at work are glass ceilings and maternal walls. It is popularized by the Wall Street Journal in the mid-1980s. The ceiling is glass because while the path to promotion seems clear, there are invisible barriers that prevent women and minorities from reaching the top levels in their careers. By the mid - 1990s, 'maternal walls' were also recognized where parents, and predominantly mothers became the victims of workplace bias on the basis of having family responsibilities. Women often had to leave or downsize their careers.

Regardless of a what women's thoughts about reproduction are, women are often stereotyped for their capabilities that are inextricably bound up in actual or potential motherhood. It is not uncommon for women to have had progressed and made way in advancing upon the corporate ladder and making dents in the glass ceiling that they encounter a maternal wall causing them difficulties to continue their track. Women are often prompted to resign from their jobs. And for those that held on to their jobs, women often felt they were blocked from continuing to move upward or being "mommy tracked," in the institution by some tacit or unwritten set of norms about women, especially married women with children. [15]

Women who had children were often expected to reduce their interest and activity level at work. Co-workers would not invite these women to meetings as people thought they would not like to add 'extra' elements to their work. In addition, many women with children will change positions to reduce travel or accommodate a more flexible schedule - these may very well be lateral movements in the hierarchy of the organization structure. However, this is often perceived that these women are signaling to their employer and fellow co-workers they did not have the same capacity for their previous work effort and a lack of 'true' commitment to their jobs.

In 2007, women who claimed they were demoted or had their pay cut after becoming pregnant and taking maternity leave filed a class action lawsuit against Bloomberg L.P, the financial-services and media company. This suit argued that motherhood, as opposed to gender, was the primary trigger of the discrimination. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1979 prohibits discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions. A consequence of this law is that firms must treat pregnancy leave as they would any other disability leave. [16]

Worldwide

Although the term, glass ceiling, was first used in 1986 by Carol Hymowitz and Timothy Schelhardt in the Wall Street Journal to explain the invisible barriers women face in attempting to gain senior management positions in corporate America[17], the concept of the glass ceiling has also been explored and studied by other countries around the world.

Europe

Studies have been done to examine the gender wage gap in European countries such as Belgium, Denmark and Spain. Based on raw wage gaps, in the public sector, the wage gap increases further up the wage distribution scale in Finland and the Netherlands. Belgium, Denmark, and Germany also exhibit a higher gap at the top of the distribution, while Ireland and Spain are observed to have a gap that moves in the opposite direction. In the private sector, Finland and the Netherlands experience gap increases when moving up the wage distribution[18], which is similar in Belgium, Denmark, France, and Ireland.

Therefore, there is evidence that some countries have a gender wage gap that is higher at the top than the middle in public and private sectors, suggesting a “glass-ceiling”.[19] The glass-ceiling is also applicable to Sweden as data from 1998-2008 shows "a large and increasing gender log wage gap at the top of the wage distribution, which has also been largely unchanged. Sweden's glass-ceiling is present in both private and public sectors.[20]

Australia

On average in Australia, full-time female workers earn $4.54(AUD) less than male workers, despite more women undertaking tertiary education than men. In 2001, only 1.3 percent of top management positions in Australia's largest companies were held by women. The Government's Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency annual survey in 2004 identified only two women chairing the top 200 companies.[21]

While organizations in industries such as the Australian property sector have provided statements in the past on a need for change, such beliefs have not been reflected in the organizations' governance structure as advocates have pushed for a greater shift in the attitudes towards women within management roles.[22]

Asia

Women in Korea also experience the glass ceiling when working in small and medium sized companies in the peripheral sectors. Those that are irregular workers and have a lower level of education experience higher invisible gender discrimination.[23] Alternatively, China has stronger evidence of a sticky floor (in which the pay gap is larger at the bottom of the pay distribution), while the glass ceiling has limited and weaker evidence. [24]

Issues

See also : Gender Discrimination and Feminism

English journal 'The Economist' has created a glass-ceiling index, showing a gap between male and female workers. The index combines data on higher education, labour-force participation, pay, child-care costs, maternity rights, business-school applications and representation in senior jobs.[25] The OECD average was about 15% gap between male and female, where Norway, the highest ranked country, scored 8% in the gap. Nonetheless, the index has been criticized for missing categories that account for each countries' economic structure and cultural differences.[26]

Governments across world have been trying to remove such a ceiling in various way. In 1991, the US Labor Department initiated a project called "The Glass Ceiling Initiative", which investigates the existence of the glass ceiling and states the ceiling as "[preventing] qualified individuals from advancing upward in their organization into management-level positions."[7] Moreover, the Nordic countries that have ranked high in GII and GGI have been supporting equality through maternity leave laws and state child care.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Federal Glass Ceiling Commission. "Solid Investments: Making Full Use of the Nation's Human Capital". Washington, D.C. U.S. Department of Labor, November 1995, p. 4.
  2. ↑ Sullivan, Arthur, Steven M. Sheffrin (2003). "Economics: Principles in action". Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Pearson Prentice Hall. p224.
  3. ↑ Michele Norris. "Looking At The 'Bamboo Ceiling'". National Public Radio. Retrieved 14 June 2012.
  4. ↑ Hesse-Biber and Carter 2005, p. 77.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Cotter, David A., Joan M. Hermsen, Seth Ovadia, and Reece Vanneman (2001). The glass ceiling effect. Social Forces, Vol. 80 No. 2, pp. 655–81.
  6. ↑ Wright, E. O., & Baxter, J. (2000). The glass ceiling hypothesis: A reply to critics. Gender and Society, 814-821
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Catherwood Library reference librarians (January 2005). "Question of the Month: Where did the term 'glass ceiling' originate?". Cornell University, ILR School. Retrieved June 30, 2013.
  8. ↑ UNDP - Human Development Report
  9. ↑ UNDP - Gender Inequality Index
  10. ↑ Global Gender Gap Report - The World Economic Forum
  11. ↑ Gender Gap Index 2014
  12. ↑ European Commission, The Situation in the EU. http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-pay-gap/situation-europe/index_en.htm
  13. ↑ Arulampalam, W., Booth, A. L., & Bryan, M. L. (2007). Is there a glass ceiling over Europe? Exploring the gender pay gap across the wage distribution. Industrial & Labor Relations Review, 60(2), 163-186.
  14. ↑ OECD Gender Wage Gap Data, http://www.oecd.org/gender/data/genderwagegap.htm, OECD employment database 2014
  15. ↑ Glass Ceilings and Maternal Walls. (2010). Glass Ceilings and Maternal Walls. In Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couples: What the Opt-Out Phenomenon Can Teach Us about Work and Family (pp. 45–60). University of Georgia Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46nj9z.9
  16. ↑ Glass Ceilings and Maternal Walls. (2010). Glass Ceilings and Maternal Walls. In Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couples: What the Opt-Out Phenomenon Can Teach Us about Work and Family (pp. 45–60). University of Georgia Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46nj9z.9
  17. ↑ Eleanor Wilson, "Diversity, Culture and the Glass Ceiling," Journal of Cultural Diversity 21, no. 3 (2014): 86.
  18. ↑ Wiji Arulampalam, Alison L. Booth and Mark L. Bryan, "Is There a Glass Ceiling over Europe? Exploring the Gender Pay Gap across the Wage Distribution," Industrial and Labor Relations Review 60, no. 2 (2007): 167
  19. ↑ Wiji Arulampalam, Alison L. Booth and Mark L. Bryan, "Is There a Glass Ceiling over Europe? Exploring the Gender Pay Gap across the Wage Distribution," Industrial and Labor Relations Review 60, no. 2 (2007): 168.
  20. ↑ James Albrecht, Peter Skogmam Thoursie and Susan Vroman, "Parental Leave and the Glass Ceiling in Sweden," Research in Labor Economics 41 (2015): 109.
  21. ↑ Hiau Joo Kee, "Glass Ceiling or Sticky Floor? Exploring the Australian Gender Pay Gap," The Economic Record 82, no. 259 (2006): 408.
  22. ↑ Clive M.J. Warren and Hera Antoniades, "Deconstructing the Glass Ceiling: Gender Equality in the Australian Property Profession," Property Management 34, no. 1 (2016): 29.
  23. ↑ Joonmo Cho, Tai Lee and Hanna Jung, "Glass Ceiling in a Stratified Labor Market: Evident from Korea," Journal of The Japanese and International Economies 32 (2014): 65.
  24. ↑ Lin Xiu and Morley Gunderson, "Glass Ceiling or Sticky Floor? Quantile Regression Decomposition of the Gender Pay Gap in China," International Journal of Manpower 35, no. 3 (2014): 306.
  25. ↑ Women and work : The glass-ceiling index
  26. ↑ Feminist Critics
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