The contribution of women has been significant and incremental for decades. Despite enormous efforts of feminists on women's emancipation in the 21st century, women are nevertheless victims of the patriarchal society. Since eras, women in all cultures and societies globally subjected to wide-ranging societal pressure, constraining their role in society, and in their household - limited to bearing and rearing children, household chores, and family maintenance. With education, few women started earning and contributing financially to the household income. Their role in the work spheres have long been limited to low level jobs and career advancement to senior leadership positions have been slow and they are globally under-represented. Empowerment of women occurs through their financial independence and wellbeing. The chapter will be guided by the theories of planned behaviour, self-determination theory and the self-efficacy theory to assess the systemic barriers to women's career progress and propose some valuable recommendations.
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Women’s contribution in the formal paid workforce has significantly changed in the last era, with an increasing proportion of women in leadership positions. Yet, women continue to face discrimination on a global scale in a variety of contexts, including the family, community, workplace, economic, and political arenas. In comparison to men, women perform three times as much unpaid labour; of those over the age of 15, half work for pay, whilst over 75% of men do the same (Tyson & Klugman, 2017). Empowerment is “the process of raising others’ self-efficacy perceptions'' (Chen et al., 2003, p. 248). Therefore, empowering women entails providing them with the opportunity to recognize and act on their own individual abilities and self-motivation. Empowerment of women occurs through their financial independence and wellbeing. Financial independence is defined as an individual’s ability to manage and sustain the latter’s expenses self-sufficiently (Bea & Yi, 2019; Rughoobur-Seetah et al., 2022). Empowered women can make a difference to the economy at the micro, meso and macro level. At the micro level, personal empowerment occurs where women are able to enjoy higher wellbeing through a change in the personal beliefs and actions; at the meso level relational empowerment pertaining to beliefs and actions linked with others occurs; whilst the macro level is associated with broader social context leading to social empowerment, (Huis et al., 2017). Empowered women can make a significant difference and lead to an increase in productivity and economic progress. Financial literacy and career growth are fundamental tools to unlock women’s potential and uplift their contribution in both financial and economic decision making. Conversely, career growth as a powerful means to empowerment of women is deeply challenged by the systemic barriers and the conscious and unconscious gender biases to advancement of women to senior leadership positions in the formal work spheres (Nikolaou, 2017; Madsen & Andrade, 2018).
Women in leadership, especially in the upper echelon, C-Suite leadership, has a significant role in gender equality, and organisational performance (Galsanjigmed & Sekiguchi, 2023). Women convey unique experiences and perspectives to leadership positions, resulting in greater innovation, better decision-making, and a positive work environment (Wu et al., 2022). Women in leadership positions being more inclusive and collaborative in their method, generate a productive and positive work environment (Cook et al., 2014). Yet, women face significant hurdles in reaching leadership positions, which include bias, gender stereotyping, institutional and cultural challenges, and a lack of advancement opportunities which will be discussed.
This chapter delves into the career advancement of women, empowerment and gender in leadership by unveiling the systemic barriers women face in reaching leadership positions and further introduces some enablers of women empowerment and upward career progression to leadership positions. Barriers can be described as events, factors or phenomena, preventing or controlling individuals’ access to advancement, and barriers can be tangible and intangible (Saadin et al., 2016). To be able to overcome the challenges that women face, it is essential to understand those barriers preventing women from exploiting their potential and identify strategies to overcome those systemic barriers.