User:Xochigrace/sandbox

Hierarchical Segregation is the phenomenon that as one moves up the ranks of power and prestige, fewer and fewer women and people of color are to be seen. This results in the positions of authority to be given to members of favored groups, predominately white males, which thereby grants more status, authority and pay within the educational/work field. This is similar to the concept of the glass ceiling, except perhaps more useful in that it suggests that rather than an invisible, unbreachable barrier that prevents women from rising to the top, there are instead multiple stages in which women are left out as men fill higher positions.

Examples:

This concept is described in Schiebinger's book, Has Feminism Changed Science?, which states: “Women now earn 54 percent of all bachelor’s degrees in the United States and 50 percent of those in science. Women begin to drop off at the graduate level, where they earn 40 percent of all doctorates (31 percent in science and engineering). Another drop-off occurs at the faculty level: in 1995 11 percent of full professors in all field of science and engineering were women. Only three women were deans at the 311 accredited engineering colleges in the United States. That is less than one percent” (Schiebinger, pg.33)

Hierarchical Segregation is also discussed in The Handbook of the Sociology of Gender, which states: "A mere handful of minorities and women have reached the top of corporate hierarchies. In 1990, only five of the 1000 CEOs listed in the Business Week 1000 were nonwhite, and only 2.6% of senior managers in nine Fortune 500 companies that the U.S Department of Labor studied were not white. In 1995, only 57 (2.4%) of the 2430 top officers in Fortune 500 companies were women."

Sources: