Izsák Péter

THE GLASS CEILING -WOMEN AT WORK

I am going to write about gender equality related to work. The essay is going to start
with the women’s situation at workplaces, then the glass ceiling effect is going to be introduced.
Furthermore, The Economist’s glass ceiling index and the Nordic countries’ gender equality
policy will be discussed.

It is well-known that women are suffering from unequal treatment all over the word,
especially at the workplace. Female labour-force participation ratio was always lower than
male’s. Back in history a Family’s life was not that flexible and the traditional roles were strictly
followed, the Mother stayed home to rise the children and the Father earned the money. Later
this standard started to change to a more equal life and nowadays it is natural that women can
be breadwinners too.

However, a great change was made, there are still problems that women still dealing
with. As it was mentioned above, the female labour-force participation rate is lower than man’s,
in addition the salaries and also the representation in senior jobs is lower.

Glass ceiling: „Artificial barriers that prevent women and minorities from being
promoted to managerial- and executive-level positions within an organization. The glass ceiling
refers to artificial barriers that prevent women from advancing beyond a certain level in the
corporate hierarchy.” (Radcliffe, B., 2018).

The level of equality of women is different in every country and it is hard to measure.
Thanks to The Economist’s glass ceiling index now we can track gender equality compared in
different countries. This is an annual report made by The Economist and it gives a benchmark
for progress on gender equality. It creates a ranking, that shows what are the best places to be
as a working woman. „It combines data on higher education, workforce participation, pay, child-
care costs, maternity and paternity rights, business-school applications and representation in

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senior jobs into a single measure of where women have the best—and worst—chances of equal
treatment in the workplace. Each country’s score is a weighted average of its performance on
ten indicators.” The Economist (2017) It is really important that countries have a feedback on
gender equality. People who lives in repression now have sources that they can rely on and
make necessary steps.

This year The Economist published it’s 6 th annual glass ceiling index. As always it
compares the present data to the last year’s and creates a conclusion. Nordic countries usually
take the first ranks, Japan, South Korea and Turkey typically ends last. In 2017 Sweden ranked
first with an outstanding over 80% percent female labour-force participation and an actual 44%
share of women in parliament. An overall progress has been made last year in several aspects
such as: female labour-force participation, women’s education, business-school entrance
exams. Even in those countries that performed worst, signs have been shown to changes in
cultural attitude, that leads to a more open-minded and enlightened world for women living
there.

Nordic countries are leading in gender equality for a long time now. The reason why they
usually finish in the top year to year according to The Economist’s glass ceiling index is they are
using gender quotas. In 2003 the law of gender quotas has been accepted and by 2006 all public
companies have to change the gender composition of their workforce and at least 40% of it has
to be female. It is worked well since most of the companies made the change and an additional
20% of the firms have chosen a loophole by changing the ownership structure.

Gender quotas made it possible for many women to live their dream and it was a huge
progress in gender equality, also a unique movement. However, the common opinion was
positive, and many politicians described gender quotas as a success story, it has a darker side
too. It was a fundamental change that was put into effect in 3 years after the statue was
accepted. There was a lack of experienced workforce that could filled the positions. „New
female directors were eight years younger than their existing male counterparts on average,
which suggests they also had less professional experience.” (Nima Sanandaji, 2018)

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„Nordic public-sector monopolies, tax policies, and welfare and family policies, along
with ineffective gender quotas, combine to create the Nordic glass ceiling.” (Nima Sanandaji,
2018) We might think there is no glass ceiling in Nordic countries since they seem to be making
moves that leads to the creation of a totally equal life. These countries are only leading in
workforce participation, in leading positions we get a completely different view. „Some 28
percent of managers are female in Denmark, 32 percent in Finland, 32 percent in Norway, and
36 percent in Sweden”. The only country of the Nordics that has a high rate in this case is
Iceland with 40%. United States that ranked 19 th in the glass ceiling index rankings in 2017 and
has an actual 43% of female participation in manager positions. „This pattern undercuts the idea
that Nordic social democratic policies help women to break the glass ceiling.” (Nima Sanandaji,
2018)

I believe that the total equality will come to an existence soon, since there are so many
movements targeting this area and there is always some progress in the glass ceiling indexes
year to year. It might take a long time to reach the total equality but if we take a look at the past
we have to admit that we came a long way. Huge changes in short time might not be the best to
choose as we learned from the Nordic countries’ example. The progress has to be as fast as it is
still controllable but steady.

References

Cato Institute. (2018). The Nordic Glass Ceiling. [online] Available at:
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/nordic-glass-ceiling#full
[Accessed 30 Apr. 2018].
Radcliffe, B. (2018). Glass Ceiling. [online] Investopedia. Available at:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/glass-ceiling.asp [Accessed 30 Apr. 2018].
reddit. (2018). Norway’s invisible glass ceiling: "quotas are a poor method for
promoting gender equality and that the heavy hand of government can
unintentionally hold back women’s career advancement." • r/JordanPeterson.
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[online] Available at:

https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/89re1f/norways_invisible_gla
ss_ceiling_quotas_are_a_poor/ [Accessed 30 Apr. 2018].
The Economist. (2018). The best and worst places to be a working woman. [online]
Available at: https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/03/daily-chart-
0 [Accessed 30 Apr. 2018].
The Economist. (2018). The glass-ceiling index. [online] Available at:
https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/03/daily-chart-1 [Accessed
30 Apr. 2018].