A new report claims that the majority of women feel that there are barriers to their progression in business.
The report, Ambition and Gender at Work, from the Institute of Leadership and Management, found that almost three quarters of women questioned thought that a glass ceiling existed in terms of progression in their careers. In comparison only 38% of men felt the same way and the report also found that women were less clear regarding their traditional career direction than men.
Other figures in the ILM survey suggest that women’s expectations are also lower than those of their male counterparts, with two-thirds of men saying that they expected to become managers compared to only half of women. The report comes at the same time as another report, conducted by Lord Davies, which is to investigate why the country’s boardrooms are so male dominated. It is believed that the report will call on the FTSE 100 companies to impose voluntary targets for appointing women executives as opposed to setting quotas, which happens in some other countries.
A separate report, for Avon, conducted by the London School of Economics, also sheds light on the ambitions of women in business with 72% of the 16 to 24-year-old’s questioned saying that they would be interested in becoming their own boss. Karren Brady, an Avon mentor, who has had a long career in football, she is currently vice-chairman at West Ham United, said that women would “define the next generation of entrepreneurship and rewrite the rules in this perceived male-dominated world”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/21/women-glass-ceiling-still-exists-top-jobs