A comparative study of the glass ceiling effect in Sweden, Great Britain and France : Is there a difference in the glass ceiling effect for women in these three countries and do the level of education and type of workplace matter?

Abstract: The inequality of the labour market has long been a discussed and studied topic and today we know that women earn less than their comparable male colleagues. Many studies have been conducted to find out if there is a glass ceiling effect for women in the labour market but most of these have used wages as their outcome variable. We wanted to see if women in the labour market face a glass ceiling when looking at the probability of holding a managerial position. We also wanted to see if there was any difference in the glass ceiling when comparing different countries so we studied the glass ceiling in Sweden, France and Great Britain. In order to study the glass ceiling, we use two separate probit regressions. The variable of interest in the first regression is the gender variable while in the other it is also an interaction term that shows the difference in the gender gaps between the private and public sector. The results show that there seems to be a glass ceiling effect in both France and Great Britain since the gender gap increases further up in the workplace hierarchy while the results for Sweden show that there is a gender gap throughout the workplace hierarchy. We also find that the gaps differ in the public and the private sector indicating that where you work can affect the probability of holding a managerial position.