Glass ceiling presses down on SEA women

Singapore - For the second year in a row, women in Southeast Asia are feeling less confident of their place at work and say they are experiencing fewer job opportunities compared to men.

According to the MasterIndex of Women's Advancement (MIWA) report by MasterCard, fewer women considered themselves to be in the “managerial position” or considered their income to fall “above the median” in this year’s survey.

One of the possible reasons of the downward trend of female confidence is the surging consumer prices and economic slowdown in the region.

"Women are the ones who run everything, from grocery shopping to managing household expenses. They are very sensitive to these things, and there might be a correlation with how they would feel about their opportunities at work," Georgette Tan, vice-president of communications for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa at MasterCard Worldwide told the Business Times.

To counter this, president of The Global Summit of Women Irene Natividad says governments and employers have to pay attention to gender equality and assisting women get past entry-level employment and break into senior management roles.