The term "glass ceiling" as a discriminatory barrier limiting females

The term "glass ceiling" as a discriminatory barrier limiting females from reaching senior management positions was used in the early 1990s, around the time that females first surpassed males in annual university degrees obtained in the United States. Studies of employment in various, such as the 2003 study of employment data in Sweden conducted by Albrecht, Bjӧrklund, and Vroman, have found a consistent gap between men's and women's wages after these are controlled for gender differences in age, education level, education field, sector, industry, and occupation. However, empirical studies as early that of Powell and Butterfield in 1994 have suggested that gender, as a job-irrelevant variable in consideration of promotions to top management positions, may actually work to women's advantage. Whereas the gender gap in pay is strongly supported by data, the glass-ceiling notion itself as a discriminatory force has been harder to account for in empirically proven terms.

Studies that have been considered by some a partial repudiation of the glass-ceiling theory have indicated that men and women differ in their preferences for competition and that such differences impact economic outcomes. If women are less likely to compete, they are less likely to enter competitive situations and hence likely to win. For example, in a laboratory experiment featuring a non-competitive option and a competitive incentive scheme, men selected the tournament twice as much as did women of equal ability. One explanation is that men are inherently more competitive; another is that the social influences limiting women's presence in executive leadership generally make their impact long before women are near the ceiling.

1. The passage suggests which of the following about gender as a job-irrelevant variable?

A. Gender should have qualified women more than men for promotions, but it favored men.
B. Gender should have qualified men more than women for promotions, but it favored women.
C. Gender should not have qualified either men or women better for promotions, but it favored men.
D. Gender should not have qualified either men or women better for promotions, but it favored women.
E. Gender should not have qualified either men or women better for promotions, and it favored neither men nor women.



2. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the partial repudiation of the glass-ceiling theory mentioned in the highlighted text?

A. Industries in which competition for management positions is higher tend to award higher compensation, on average.
B. The average pay gap between men and women is larger in industries in which competition for management positions is lower.
C. Women who are compensated less than men working in similar positions are less likely to compete for management positions.
D. Women tend to achieve results equal to those of men when working according to non-competitive incentive schemes.
E. The pay gap between women who opt for competition and men is smaller than the pay gap between men and women in general.



3. The author of the passage would be most likely to describe the explanation provided by the glass-ceiling theory for women's relative scarcity in senior management positions as

A. well founded though incomplete
B. difficult to articulate
C. plausible but poorly substantiated
D. seriously flawed
E. contrary to recent research