Are women equal yet?

We are into the second decade of the 21st century and it seems a long while since the 1970s, when women in business were concerned about breaking the “glass ceiling” that separated them from upper management. In the wake of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, feminist thinkers noted that women could see all the men up there, beyond that glass ceiling, enjoying the money and status of their position. The patriarchal nature of business was keeping women in their place but, thanks to the feminist movement and the women and men who have embraced it, many women have broken through that ceiling. Today women are CEOs, members of the US President’s cabinet, Prime Ministers and Chancellors of universities. Despite this breakthrough to high levels, there remain questions as to how deep the changes have gone, and a new study has raised further questions.

In the study researchers gathered data from 20 different countries. In each country they looked at between 89 and 497 occupations, depending on the country. Countries involved came from America, South America, Europe, Scandinavia and Asia. In each country the earning levels for men and women in each occupation were compared.

The results showed that when both men and women work in a profession it is the men who tend to occupy the highest paying jobs. However, when there are few men who work in a profession then women tend to rise higher and can earn salaries equivalent to men in other industries.

What this suggests is that where women and men co-exist in the work environment there is still a tendency for men to dominate the higher paid positions. In turn that suggests that the time to stop working toward equality in our society is never.