The Women's Path to Senior Management Positions

Organisations continue to struggle with increasing gender diversity in management leaving few women in higher echelons of management positions. Feminists have tried to explain this phenomenon in terms of the unequal power relations and fundamental inequalities existing between the sexes in society. The Ghana Health Service (GHS) seems to employ a significant number of women in Ghana. Yet women¿s access to upper management positions is limited. The study focused on finding out the opinions of a cross-section of employees of GHS as to why women do not progress into senior management positions. It was also to explore how employees interpret the lack of women in senior management positions. The study was a qualitative one based on feminist ideology and methods for data collection. A telephone interview of middle level women managers was conducted to obtain qualitative data, which was analysed using content analysis. The findings suggest that the absence of women in senior management positions within the GHS is as a result of several factors, which may include constraints imposed on women by society, the family, organisational structures, and women themselves.