Glass ceiling of women in top management in organization: critical overview (original) (raw)
With more and more women are being educated, confident, self-reliant, skilled, competentenough to give tough competition to their male counterparts in management sectors. But sadly despite all the existing legal provision women are still struggling more than ever to reach the top positions and this has been labelled glass ceiling.A research by International Labour Organization (Breaking through the Glass Ceiling 2004) being one of the most comprehensive international studies reveals that the attainment of top executive positions for females in the world in general and India in particular is complex. Over a period of time number of highly educated women in the workforce has increased and in some way has achieved commendable success in male domain of the corporate world. However gender discrimination in working world has adversely affected the advancement of women. Women today comprise only 2 percent of the total managerial strength in the Indian Management sector.Although there is an increase in the female workforce but professional development opportunities for them remain negligible or not up to the mark. Thus we can say it is easier for females to enter the managerial jobs but it is all the more difficult to make progress regardless of her credentials. This paper focuses on the reality of the glass ceiling, the invisible barrier that women experience in their upward career mobility which prevents them from reaching the top of the organization. Specific personal comprehensives, characteristics and activities are regulated to the background. The presupposed female stereotype dominates the relationship, since it's difficult to describe the career growth possibilities and upward mobility. Here we review some of the gender inequalities that lie behind the phenomenon of the glass ceiling. A major source of discrimination stems from strongly held attitudes towards women's and men's social roles and behaviour. If one compares the effective roles played by women and men rather than looking at women as an isolated group it becomes apparent that each has different access to resources, work opportunities and status. The consequences of gender inequalities include women being " crowded " into a narrow range of occupations where there is less responsibility and/or lower pay, or having to work part time where are fewer opportunities for advancement. While this situation can be explained to some extent by men's and women's perceptions of their respective social roles, these roles have in fact been undergoing substantial changes in recent decades. Labour force participation patterns of men and women, and social attitudes, have been gradually evolving to reflect these.
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O’Sullivan, Sara (2007) pp.265-82 in Sara O’Sullivan (ed.) Contemporary Ireland: A Sociological Map Dublin: UCD Press.