Glass Ceiling Index

The glass ceiling index and related distributional measures quantify the 'glass ceiling' — the tendency for gender disadvantage to intensify toward the top of a wage distribution or organisational hierarchy. Cotter and colleagues (2001) set out formal criteria distinguishing a true ceiling from a general gap, while labour economists operationalise it as a widening female–male gap at high quantiles of earnings, and popular indices (such as The Economist's) rank countries by women's representation in senior roles, pay, and leadership.