The Glass Ceiling: Women in the Telecom Industry

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the reasons and understand the problem that why women are underrepresented in top organizational hierarchies as compared to men. To find out what are the reasons for differences in the career progression between women and men, and identify what type of barriers and challenges women are confronted with at their working environment. A term most commonly used to refer to barriers which prevent women’s career progression is known as “glass ceiling”. The study is designed to examine the different factors and barriers that thwart the career progression of women in an organization. Furthermore, the study also investigates the lack of workplace laws such as promoting equal employment opportunities, male dominated policies, and geographical immobility have restricted women’s opportunities in the career progression. The women of Asia suffer from some of the lowest rates of political representation, employment and property ownership in the world. Their lack of participation, the 2010 Asia-Pacific Human Development Report found, is also retarding economic growth, by pacificeyewitness.org (April 2, 2010). The type of barriers normally faced by women in career progression as examined by CareerWomen.com are in the following ratios as such; 96% barriers are due to corporate culture favors men, 85% is due to the reason that women are excluded from informal networks, 78% barriers are due to general stereotypes, 52% barriers women face are due to the perception of management that family responsibilities will interfere with work, 45% is lack of women on executive management team and 19% barriers are due to women herself place the barriers in her way. Most of the reasons for barriers are also investigated in this study and studies done by other researchers indicate the same barriers as well.