What are the barriers that affect females’ advancement into senior management positions?
Males heavily dominate the international society of management, with very few females holding prominent management positions. In 2006, amongst the fortune 500 companies, fewer than 2% of the CEO’s were women (Duehr and Bono, 2006), (Johnson, Murphy, 2008). Females are faced with a number of barriers when attempting to reach management positions and break through the ‘glass ceiling’, such as that they tend to require fewer hours and greater flexibility around their work schedule due to additional external responsibilities, and they are not considered to have the key characteristics that identify a good manager. Furthermore, if women do reach the management level, there are a number of
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These factors all lead to major gender inequality and discrimination in today’s western society, and this is one area where it shows prominently.
More often then not, in modern day families, the presumption is made that the mother is responsible for looking after the family and keeping life in order whilst the father works full time (Duehr and Bono, 2006). Kyriakidou (2012) states that it makes it harder for women to be recruited and work in managerial positions due to having responsibility for younger children and families. Robin (2011) agrees, expressing that women often do not have a linear career path, and swap between jobs that are more suitable for the family. Furthermore, Powell (2011) goes on to agree that the ‘outside-of-work’ responsibilities create many more obstacles, increasing the difficulty for women to focus on a management position. Females are considered as those who have responsibility for the family because they are the ones who are pregnant and take maternal leave from work to give birth and look after the child/ren, (Thompson, 2005) whilst the father continues to work and make an income. This,