Working women face not just one but multiple glass ceilings, with the biggest barriers to career progression comprising age and motherhood.
According to a survey of 1,000 UK females in employment undertaken by accountancy firm Ernst & Young, the other key inhibitors were a dearth of role models and a lack of experience or qualifications.
But such factors were not chronological and could be undergone at any time, with several issues often coming to the fore at once, the research indicated.
Liz Bingham, E&Y’s managing partner for people, said that at the moment the gender diversity debate was increasingly being focused on female boardroom representation, which was an important issue.
“But the notion that there is a single glass ceiling for women, as a working concept for today’s modern career, is dead,” she pointed out. “Professional working women have told us they face multiple barriers on their rise to the top.”
Unfortunately this situation meant that UK businesses were losing their “best and brightest female talent from the pipeline before they have even had a chance to smash the glass ceiling”, Bingham added.
Negative impact
The survey revealed that the top issue – age – had to date negatively affected the career progression of about a third of the women questioned, with a further 27% expecting it to do so in future. The problem was particularly acute in the 18-23 age group, where half of respondents said that they had already encountered difficulties.
As to the motherhood situation, some 25% of those questioned felt it was currently the second biggest inhibitor to their career development, while 22% believed a lack of appropriate experience and qualifications took the number two slot.
A worrying three out of four, however, said that they had either few or no female role models to emulate within their organisations, with 8% going so far as to say that the situation had had a detrimental impact on their careers.
When asked what the top three things their employer could do to make life easier for them were, the respondents requested:
- More support after returning to work after having children (32%)
- More support at every stage of their career (24%)
- More visible female role models (19%).
What they wanted to see coming through in terms of government policy, however, was:
- Making employers reveal the ‘pay gap’ between men and women (45%)
- Introducing affordable childcare/tax relief for childcare (43%)
- Better guidance for employers on flexible working (28%).
