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The glass ceiling is a term used whenever a woman reaches a certain level in her profession and cannot advance to the next level that her male counterparts progress to. This assignment aims at explaining the concept of the “glass ceiling” in the workplace as well as impact thereof and recommendations to address the issue. This will be done through providing an overview of this concept through statistics, historical background of women in the workplace.
This assignment will go further to illustrate the impact of the Women’s Liberation Movement in encouraging women to fight for heir rights to be recognized as equal partners in both professionally and socially. The glass ceiling is an international issue and this assignment will focus on the international, national and local impacts and for the local impact Standard Bank will be used as an example. At the end recommendations will be provided to address the issue focusing on both the private and public sectors. . According to the Oxford dictionary a glass ceiling refers to an unacknowledged barrier in a profession, especially affecting women and members of minorities. Whilst the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission described it as the unseen, yet unbreakable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements.
All the above definitions agree with Pollard’s description that states that the glass ceiling is an invisible barrier that exists within organizations, and affects women’s mobility to top decision making positions (Pollard, 2005). 2. 2 OVERVIEW – STATISTICS In order to determine the level or existence of the “glass ceiling” in South Africa it is gesturing to find that despite the fact that women make half of the workplace and 52% of the population.
The study conducted by the Business Women’s Association (BAA) in 2010 reveals that in South Africa: 0 4. 5% of the Coos, and 0 19. 3% of the executive managers of the approximately 315 Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed companies are women. 073 companies listed on the SSE do not have a woman on their boards of directors. 16. 6% of company directors are women. Hicks (2011) also states that 6% of company chairs are women. The above figures clearly states that there is inequity that exists in the workplace between women and en.
Besides this there is also inequality in salary scales as illustrated by the Statistical Abstract 2009 which is a study done in the USA to determine the salary differences between male and female in different levels but possessing the same level of education. See below graph