Descriptive Elements and Conceptual Structure of Glass Ceiling Research

Women make up more than half of the population of every society and are seen as the creators and instructors of the next generation. They are potentially significant human resources in the scientific, social, and cultural development of most countries and, consequently, special attention needs to be paid to the form of their occupational promotion. This paper describes the evolution of research on glass ceiling until July 2020. We compiled a database of 823 articles focused on the field and published in academic journals in the ISI WoS database. Bibliometric methods and techniques were used to describe the evolution of scientific activity, countries, and active institutions, most productive authors, most relevant sources, most influential documents, trend topics, and social structure researched. This determined the state of the art and described the evolution of the literature in this field, and it will help scholars refine existing and initiate new research agendas. A total of 846 documents were identified, and the results showed an upward trend in glass ceiling scientific production. Based on these analyses, possible forms of future research are proposed to advance toward the consolidation of this scientific discipline.