Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling? The United Arab Emirates Case

The objective of this chapter is to explore the concept of the glass ceiling in the UAE’s rapidly growing economy amid the present regional political and social unrest. The glass ceiling is generally defined as an invisible barrier that prevents women from reaching senior positions in organizations. It consists of an infinite number of cultural and gender biases that are not always immediately identifiable or visible except to those who are affected by it. The glass ceiling is a particular phenomenon that has an impact on women, and it is not to be confused with a differential system of rewards in organizations that affects both genders (Cotter et al., 2001). It is a constructed plateau beyond which women are denied an opportunity to advance into senior levels of management, an unfair routine practice that denies appropriately qualified women the opportunity to reach top-level jobs merited by their performance. Recently, Smith (2012) tested the glass ceiling hypothesis and concluded that worldwide, relative inequality remains constant both at higher and lower levels of authority, where men hold an advantage over women and minorities. Today, corporate success for women means taking on male-type behaviors and competing on men’s terms.