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Introduction and background of career development
Introduction and background of career development
Introduction and background of career development
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The glass ceiling is an invisible barrier preventing women and minorities from advancing into upper management (Bell 67). Despite extensive legislation and the widespread implementation of equal opportunity policies, there is still widespread structural inequality and job segregation in organizations throughout the United States. "The level of the `glass ceiling' varies among organizations and is reflected in different employment patterns, hiring practices, and promotion plans" (Adler 451). The purpose of this paper is to provide background as well as a more in-depth analysis of the glass ceiling phenomenon and apply a human-capitalistic theorist perspective to the issues.
Women are underrepresented in managerial (Adler 451) and executive level positions within organizations in the United States even today. Although females embody almost fifty percent of the workforce (Adler 451, they occupy only about thirty percent of all salaried positions, twenty percent of middle manager positions, and about five percent of executive level positions (Bell 65). At the current rate of increase in executive women, it will take until 2466 or over 450 years to reach equality with executive men.
There are three major barriers that prevent women from moving into the upper hierarchies of management in an organization; these include (1) societal barriers, (2) internal structural barriers, and (3) governmental barriers (GCC 7).
"Societal barriers which may be outside the control of business" include barriers relating to educational opportunity and attainment as well as the difference barrier, which is the conscious or unconscious "stereotyping, prejudice, and bias related to gender" (GCC 7-8). Women are perceived as being less knowl...
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...change agents." Journal of Business Ethics 37.1 (2002): 65-76.
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Cotter, David A., Joan M. Hermsen, Seth Ovadia, and Reeve Vanneman. "The Glass Ceiling Effect." Social Forces 80.2 (2001): 655-682.
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After doing some critical thinking, I decided to select the "Glass Ceiling Theory" as my topic. My thesis statement will include how research proves that the "Glass Ceiling Theory" isn't a theory at all, it is an authentic term used to describe the invisible barrier that keeps women and minorities from advancing in the corporate world. The term "Glass Ceiling" can apply to women who are kept from elevating in the corporate world because they are female. Female executives are reduced to particular types of jobs, often staff and supportive jobs that provide limited opportunity for growth. I believe that men and women were proven to be equal decades ago, but the earnings of women in comparison to men are unjust. On average, women earn less than
Powell, G., Butterfield, D., and Bartol, K. (2008). Leader evaluations: A new female advantage? Gender in Management: An International Journal, 23, 156-174.
Soares, Rachel, Mark Bartkiewicz, Liz Mulligan-Ferry, Emily Fendler, and Elijah Wai Chun Kun. "Statistical Overview of Women in the Workplace." Catalyst. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
This phenomenon was first described in a Wall Street Journal report by Hymowitz and Schellhardt (1986). Morrison, White and Velsor (1987) adopted the term in academic settings in their book titled: Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Can women Reach the top of America’s Largest Corporations? They defined glass ceiling as “a transparent barrier that kept women from rising above a certain level in corporations”. Many studies across different disciplines adopted the term since then (Bullard and Wright 1993; Cornwell and Kellough 1994; Crum and Naff 1997; Kellough 1989; Lewis and Emmert 1986; Lewis and Nice 1994; Mani 1997; Naff 1994; Naff and Thomas 1994; Newman 1994; Pfeffer and Davis-Blake 1987; Reid, Kerr, and Miller 2003; Wilson 2002). As a consequence, social psychologists provided the theoretical explanation of why there is fewer female on managerial positions. They came to the conclusion that this phenomenon is closely related to the fact that leadership is considered as a male quality. Traits that can be found in the literature, such as: ambitious, directive and risk-taking, are generally associated with men (Sabharwal, 2013). Moreover, there are some theories that try to expand the role of men in leadership even further. The “think-manager-thin-man” is undoubtedly dominating the literature (Agars
The "glass ceiling" has held women back from certain positions and opportunities in the workplace. Women are stereotyped as part-time, lower-grade workers with limited opportunities for training and advancement because of this "glass ceiling". How have women managed their careers when confronted by this glass ceiling? It has been difficult; American women have struggled for their role in society since 1848. Women’s roles have changed significantly throughout the past centuries because of their willingness and persistence. Women have contributed to the change pace of their role in the workplace by showing motivation and perseverance.
The “glass ceiling” is a barrier to advancement that affects women when they work in
Also, the majority of women have been able to secure employment from traditionally female occupations such as teaching compared to male-dominated careers like engineering. Moreover, democratic country like the United States of America has recognized gender inequality as a fundamental issue and espouse equal right between men and women in contributing to social, economic and cultural life. Despite this improvement, gender inequality persists as women are not represented and treated equally in the workplace (Michialidis, Morphitou, & Theophylatou, 2012). The increasing number of women in the workplace has not provided equal opportunity for career advancement for females due to the way women are treated in an organization and the society. Also, attaining an executive position seem impossible for women due to the glass ceiling effects which defines the invisible and artificial barrier created by attitudinal and organizational prejudices, which inhibit women from attaining top executive positions (Wirth
Women face an unofficial barrier called the glass ceiling, which limits how high a women can advance in a profession. “Women holding the titles of chairman, CEO, COO (chief operating officer), and executive vice president remain at about 7 percent of the population of executives in the United States” (Hoobler, Wayne, & Lemmon, 2009). Women seem to have more of a family-work conflict then men, so bosses don’t seem to have as much desire, to promote females compared to men (Hoobler, Wayne, & Lemmon 939-940). Men still view women as having a social role, examples are cooking, childcare, and household chores. Men feel threatened, and scared when females are able to handle both work and their personal life. Excuses are created by men, where they believe females should focus on one role, because they won’t be able to accomplish family roles and work roles efficiently. Women can help themselves with this issue of family-work conflict, by, improving communication with their employers. Women can communicate to their employer, by explaining and clarifying their expectations on how much workload they can
In addition, women are seen to have a ‘glass-ceiling’ in their employment opportunities. They have the qualifications and skills, but reach a point where it's difficult to gain a high paying
What Is the Glass Ceiling? Some may think that the glass ceiling is actually a ceiling made of glass. Although it is an interesting thought it is much more than that. “The term was originally coined by Hymowitz and Schellhardt in a Wall Street Journal report in 1986 to represent the barriers that women who attempted and aspired to senior management positions faced” (Lockwood 2004). The glass ceiling is an intangible barrier that makes it near impossible for women and those of ethnicities, other than Caucasian, from a achieving a job of high corporate status.
There have been changes in regards to women in top positions within the last few years. However, although those advances are positive, they are still no where equal. A certain statistic may say that there has been a 14% increase in the number of women in executive jobs for a certain company. However, although that increase is no doubt positive, it fails to tell the true story. That increase is only increases from a very minute number, if not zero, of women who previously held that position. Another thing that that statistic fails to mention is that the most of them include women in that position as that company from all of its worldwide locations. In other words, only 14% of executives around that world for a certa...
The frustrating thing about this kind of oppression is that it is covert and cannot be seen. Instead of being a tangible barrier that would be easy to identify, a glass ceiling in the workplace persists in very subtle ways. It is not visible, but it is all too real for the women who are faced with it as presented in this
For many decades, women have faced inequalities in the workforce. At one point, they were not allowed to work at all. Although women's rights have improved and are now able to work alongside men, they are still treated unfairly. According to the 2012 U.S. Census, women’s earnings were “76.5 percent of men’s” (1). In 2012, men, on average, earned $47,398 and women earned only $35,791. This is when comparing employees where both gender spend the same amount of time working. Not only do women encounter unfairness in work pay, they also face a “glass ceiling” on a promotional basis. This glass ceiling is a “promotion barrier that prevents woman’s upward ability” (2). For example, if a woman is able to enter a job traditionally for men, she will still not receive the same pay or experience the same increase in occupational ability. Gender typing plays a huge role in the workplace. It is the idea that women tend to hold jobs that are low paid with low status. Women are not highly considered in leadership positions because of social construction of gender. Society has given women the role of “caretakers” and sensitive individuals. Therefore, women are not depicted as authoritative figures, which is apparent with the absence of women in leadership roles in companies. Furthermore, sex segregation leads to occupations with either the emphasis of women in a certain job or men in a certain job. In 2009, occupations with the highest proportion of women included “secretary, child care worker, hair dresser, cashier, bookkeeper, etc.” (3). Male workers typically held job positions as construction workers, truck drivers, taxi drivers, etc. (3). Sex segregation represents inequality because the gender composition for these jobs depends on what ...
Jones states in his Gallup news article entitled Americans Say Equal Pay Top Issue for Working Women, (Jones, 2014) that the data from a September 2014 Gallup poll shows that two of the most important issues facing working women in this country today are equal/fair pay and equal opportunity for advancement and promotion. These concerns placed higher than the issues of better childcare and healthcare and the economy in general. The number of working women in the United States is almost equal to that of men, however the challenges women face in establishing careers and advancing in them is different from men. The EEOC Women 's Work Group issued a report (EEOC Women 's Work Group, 2010) that cites many of the biggest challenges for women seeking equal opportunities in the workplace. These include lack of mentoring and grooming for management positions, being less likely to be invited to networking events, women not being granted training and developmental assignments on as equal footing as men, and women not being targeted in recruitment efforts for upper level and management positions. In order to combat these discriminatory practices, employers should develop mentoring programs and monitor their effectiveness, actively making sure that women are as equally included as men. Senior level officials should be expected to mentor subordinates and that mentoring should not be gender biased. Businesses should perform a barrier analysis to discover what obstacles
...which benefit an organization however, they are seldom valued as compared to the more traditional male aggressive, dominant traits. Top managerial positions come with a price for women and studies performed by Hoffnung (2004) indicate professional women delay relationships or starting a family in order to advance in their careers (as cited in Nadler & Stockdale, 2012, p. 282).