Abstract:
Glass ceiling refers to both visible and invisible barriers that stop female and minorities from their
career advancing to the top positions. As the glass ceiling exists, identified that the low participation
of female employees than minorities in the Sri Lankan Insurance sector according to the companies‟
annual reports. Previous researches were not touched in Insurance sector. Research formulated from
various perspectives to have a more understanding of the exciting glass ceiling by using both
quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct the research. The study has been completed with an
empirical survey which was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire and semi-structured
interview. And the sample consisted of eighty-five male and female executives and above employees
to make knowledge about gender vice perception about the glass ceiling. The study was conducted
with the aim of obtaining the level of glass ceiling factors, impact on female career advancement and
identifying the strategies that used to overcome this glass ceiling obstacles in leading insurance sector
employees in Colombo District. The hypotheses are developed to find out whether there is a
significant impact of individual factors, organizational factors, family factors, and cultural factors on
female career advancement. According to major findings of the study, female career advancement has
a moderate positive impact from glass ceiling. Hence individual factors and cultural factors make
significant positive impact on female‟s career advancement and family factors make significant
negative impact based on statistical and interview performances. According to gender bias
perspectives, female‟s also same with above results. According to males‟ perspective individual
factors and cultural factors were only making positive significant impact to female employees‟ career
advancement. In view of the findings, recommendations have been made towards career booming of
females by breaking the glass ceiling. Finally, valuable suggestions for further studies on different
dimensions and sectors and limitations of the study have been outlined.
Keywords: Female career advancement; Glass ceiling; Glass ceiling factors; Individual factors
