Glass Ceiling

A Matched Cohort Study of Career Progression:

Glass Ceiling Effect or Sticky Floors?

JEAVONS, Simone (Curtin University of Technology) & SEVASTOS, Peter (Curtin University of Technology)

A matched cohort study of career progression:

Glass ceiling effect or Sticky Floors?

Abstract The minority of women in senior management has led many researchers to investigate whether a glassceiling effect exists, or whether other factors such as sexual discrimination, or females self selection out of the organization are at play. This study investigated whether the glass ceiling effect p.  existed by using a matched cohort to measure progression via the number of promotions men and women had received. Ordinary least square and tobit regression analyses were conducted on a matchedcohort, with participants being matched on initial job level and commencement date (N = 191). The study controlled for previous job experience, education, age, tenure, initial job level, and gender. The results showed that even levels of promotions existed for men and women. However, qualitative data showed that women were employed by the organization at a level that was lower than theirqualifications, or lower than men doing the same job. Therefore, even with equal rates of promotion, women will not progress as far as men. Quantitative analysis on the entire sample (N = 441) showed that women were ≈12 times as likely to be recruited in low level job classifications. This study highlights the need to collect both quantitative and qualitative data when investigating an issue that may be of acovert nature.

The term ‘glass ceiling’ effect was introduced in 1986 to describe the barriers that women experienced that resulted in a lack of promotional opportunities for women into management, more specifically from middle to senior management levels (Wajcman, 1999). The glass ceiling effect can be described as “a transparent barrier that keeps women from rising above a certain level incorporations” (Morrison, White, Van Velsor & The Centre For Creative Leadership, 1999, p. 299) Women are often blamed for this lack of progression. This gender gap in career progression has been linked to institutional barriers, current managers expectations and attitudes toward women, women’s personality characteristics, reluctance to relocate, family status, career choices, labour market economicforces, organizational structure, societal division of labour, male dominated organizational culture and the traditional link of managerial traits with male behaviours (Burke & McKeen, 1992; Melamed, 1995; van Vianen & Fischer, 2002). Supporting research has found that differential rates of promotion exist for men and women, and even a small variance can impact greatly on the number of women thatreach executive level (Day, Schleicher, Unckless, & Hiller, 2002; McDowell, Singell, & Ziliak, 1999) leaving women disillusioned and dissatisfied. Heilman, Block and Martell (1995) found the persisting effects of gender status mean that women managers’ efforts to assert authority over others is undercut by the continuing and p.  implicit assumptions that women are not quite as competent in therole as men. Assumed lack of competency is one of the reasons suggested for low levels of promotion of women into senior management roles (Campbell, 2002; Lyness & Thompson, 1997; Ridgeway, 2001). In addition, research shows that biases in the attribution of success to ability rather than effort clearly favour men and success of women is attributed to effort or luck (Burke & McKeen, 1992; Greenhaus &Parasuraman, 1993 as cited in Melamed, 1995; Swim & Sana, 1996). When the majority of the individuals in an organization are of one gender, the work culture that prevails will often be based on the attitudes and values of the dominant sex (Ayre, 2001). If the organization is male dominated, this will disadvantage women, as the underlying culture will be based on the way males communicate, and...