The Glass Ceiling: Barriers Hindering Women’s Vertical Advancement the Case of the Private Sector in Morocco

Abstract

This study investigates the glass ceiling that impedes women’s advancement to leadership positions in Moroccan private companies, despite ongoing national efforts toward gender equality.

Based on thirty-one qualitative, semi-structured interviews with female middle managers in private and multinational firms in Morocco, the research explores career trajectories, workplace cultures, and the strategies women use to overcome gendered barriers in management.

The results highlight that career management and leadership models remain influenced by masculine norms, reinforcing patterns of exclusion. Human resource policies, while ostensibly neutral, perpetuate discriminatory practices within organizational cultures dominated by male values. Maternity, coupled with unequal domestic roles and enduring stereotypes about women’s professional commitment, emerges as a key impediment to career progression. Women in senior management face heightened visibility and scrutiny—commonly described as the 'token effect.' Participants identified both individual strategies (such as assertiveness and networking) and organizational measures (such as top management support and work-life balance policies) as effective responses to these obstacles.

The findings call for systemic changes in organizational culture and policy to create genuine opportunities for female leadership. The study is limited by its focus on a specific sector and type of participant.

By provinding first-hand narratives, this research enriches understanding of the gendered dynamic of corporate advancement in Morocco, a context still seldom exmined in the intenational littérature.

JEL classification : M12, M16, J16, J71, O55.

Paper type : Recherche Empirique