THE GLASS CEILING: MYTH OR REALITY ?
A RT IC L E P R I N T E D 2 0 1 0 BY PAULA KING
T H E G L A S S C E I L I N G – A P H R A SE C O I N E D I N 1 9 8 4 T O M E A N A N I N V I SI B L E BA R R I E R T O WOM E N B E I N G P R OM O T E D B EYO N D M I D D L E M A NAG E M E N T The Glass Ceiling: Myth or Reality? The phrase the glass ceiling was originally coined 27 years ago so surely it would not be unreasonable to expect that, with the advent of a new century, things have changed radically for women in the workplace. What is the reality in 2011 for the woman in the workplace?. Women now represent 30 per cent of managers in the largest companies in Europe, according to European Union data. An indication of the potentially seismic shift taking place in the management population is that female heads of department in the UK earned more on average than their male counterparts for the first time this year. Therefore we need to question why women are very much the exception to the male rule at the highest level – in boardrooms and on executive management committees. Only 2 per cent of chief executives and presidents, or chairmen of Europe’s largest companies are female, according to European Commission statistics. In an article in the Financial Times (1/10/08) it was noted that where change is happening in Europe, external pressure plays an
important part. In Norway, the threat of government quotas for women on boards, combined with a very public annual census on diversity, has helped to concentrate minds. In the UK, government, business schools and leading companies have joined forces to address the shortage of women on boards. At an event to mark International Women’s Day in 2010 the International Labour Office (ILO) reported that women still face higher unemployment rates and lower wages than men. The rate of success women have in breaking the glass ceiling remains slow, uneven and sometimes discouraging. Women continue to have more difficulty obtaining top jobs First Edition
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