Management Analysis: The Ongoing Impact of the Glass Ceiling on Women

This essay examines the significant impact of the glass ceiling on female professionals in the workplace. It analyzes various factors contributing to this phenomenon, including unequal pay structures, gender preferences in hiring, self-underestimation among women, reluctance to negotiate, and the tendency to avoid technical aspects of their jobs. The essay references studies from the Pew Research Center, Forbes, and other academic sources to support its arguments, highlighting the persistent barriers women face in achieving high-ranking positions and career advancement. The author explores how societal expectations, biases, and organizational practices limit opportunities for women, leading to a continued gap in wages and underrepresentation in leadership roles. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for addressing these issues to promote gender equity and create a more inclusive workplace. This assignment is available on Desklib, a platform offering AI-powered study tools for students.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1MANAGEMENT
The concept of glass ceiling has negative impact of the gender equity in the
workplaces. According to my analysis (Refer to Appendix 1), 57.89% have claimed that there
is tremendous impact of glass ceiling even today for the female professionals. In order to
evaluate the intensity of the glass ceiling on the modern female professionals, it becomes
important to assess the concept. As per the opinion of Glass and Cook, glass ceiling is the
term which signifies the fact that the minorities do not have entry to certain fields owing to
their gender or in many cases, are prohibited from conducting certain activities for the same
reason. With a close consideration towards the general practice of the term, Sabharwal
mentioned it to be an unknown obstacle which restricts the female professionals from
achieving high ranking job positions. Bertrand, Marianne et al. claimed that the term is
accurate for signifying certain barriers which blocks the female professionals and
discriminated set of people from advancing in their work or moving up. The study delivers a
persuasive argument on the fact that there is still substantial presence of substantial amount of
glass ceiling on the female professionals.
According to the comments of Albrecht, Thoursie and Vroman, the existence of glass
ceiling even in the 21st century is primarily prominent with factors such as unequal pay
structure, gender preferences prior to the identification of the selection criteria, self-
underestimation from the part of the female professionals, being shy of facing organizational
conflict, lack of flexibility along with greater apathy towards the undertaking of the risk.
According to an analysis of Pew Research Centre Analysis, it is found that the gap in pay
owing to the gender, had certainly decreased from the year 1980, however, the gap in the pay
structure has remained same for last 15 years and that certainly shows the existence of a
prominent gap in the wage for the employees of both the gender (Pewresearch.org). As a
result, the existence of the glass ceiling is visible with no sign of decrement of the gap
between the wage characteristics of women and men.

2MANAGEMENT
On the other hand, Sabharwal highlighted an excellent point supporting the existence
of glass ceiling with the mention that there are several job profiles that are solely designed to
attract the participation of the male professionals. The engineering job roles or more
specifically trade such as Electrical Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering,
Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering is observed to offer considerably less to a
female employee. The lack of preferences of the companies operating in these fields of
engineering towards the recruitment of the female professionals is so prominent that the
engineering colleges also experiences considerably low participation of the female students in
these trades.
Along with that, Powell and Butterfield mentioned that one of the main attributes of
the female professionals that lead them towards facing the heat of the glass ceiling, is
observed to be their apathy in negotiating for themselves. Powell and Butterfield further
added that the women are considerably capable in portraying and applying their negotiation
skills but in majority of the cases, such application of the negotiation skills is for someone
else rather than her. The lack of interest of the female professionals in negotiating, is the
fundamental factor that influences the pay gap and at the same, it also leads them towards the
rejection for managerial positions. Other than this, an important consideration came from
Folke and Rickne regarding the factors that influence the existence of the glass ceiling where
it is observed that the female professionals have tremendous reluctance towards exhibiting
their technical skills. A newsletter of Forbes highlighted that there is significant tendency
amongst the female professionals to leave the technical aspect associated with their job for
the male professionals (Allen). The female professionals have sound ability in managing the
financials and the metrics, however, they seem to have the tendency of limiting themselves
from portraying their talent in managing the technical stuff owing to some mysterious fear of
the “so called hard skills”.

3MANAGEMENT
Other than this, Chisholm-Burns et al. mentioned that majority of the female
professionals are not good speakers in front of certain audience. In the managerial positions,
the leaders are required to communicate to their subordinate employees and eliminate the
concerns or confusions of their employees for the smooth management of their business
actions. Other than this, Thoursie and Vroman highlighted that the employees fear the
possible formation of the conflict and has the tendency of compromising the desired goals as
well. Having said that, the leaders cannot take their eyes off from the ultimate goal and are
required to resolve the conflict from the forefront. Apart from this, Glass and Cook claimed
that the women professionals lacks flexibility and at the same time, Folke and Rickne
mentioned that the major share of female professionals fear to take risk for their business and
that limits the possibility of growth of their business more often than not.
Hence, it is understandable that the above mentioned factors contribute to the concept
of glass ceiling for the women professionals and the existence of the glass ceiling for the
female professionals is still pretty prominent.

4MANAGEMENT
References:
Albrecht, James, Peter Skogman Thoursie, and Susan Vroman. "Parental leave and the glass
ceiling in Sweden." Research in Labor Economics 41 (2015): 89-114.
Allen, Terina. "Six Hard Truths For Women Regarding The Glass Ceiling". Forbes, 2020,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/terinaallen/2018/08/25/six-6-hard-truths-for-women-
regarding-that-glass-ceiling/#3387355a427f.
Bertrand, Marianne, et al. "Breaking the glass ceiling? The effect of board quotas on female
labour market outcomes in Norway." The Review of Economic Studies 86.1 (2019):
191-239.
Chisholm-Burns, Marie A., et al. "Women in leadership and the bewildering glass ceiling."
American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy 74.5 (2017): 312-324.
Folke, Olle, and Johanna Rickne. "The glass ceiling in politics: Formalization and empirical
tests." Comparative Political Studies 49.5 (2016): 567-599.
Glass, Christy, and Alison Cook. "Leading at the top: Understanding women's challenges
above the glass ceiling." The Leadership Quarterly 27.1 (2016): 51-63.
Pewresearch.org. "Pew Research Center". Pew Research Center, 2020,
https://www.pewresearch.org/.
Powell, Gary N., and D. Anthony Butterfield. "The glass ceiling: what have we learned 20
years on?." Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance (2015).
Sabharwal, Meghna. "From glass ceiling to glass cliff: Women in senior executive service."
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 25.2 (2015): 399-426.