Does the glass ceiling exist? A longitudinal study of women's progress on french corporate boards

Abstract

In this article, we conduct a longitudinal study of women's progress on French corporate boards of directors. We particularly focus on the extent to which women directors have circumvented the glass ceiling. Using a sample of SBF 120 companies over a 10-year period from 2000 to 2009, our results provide evidence of a significant increase in the number of women on French corporate boards. However, the corporate glass ceiling hypothesis is consistently rejected whatever the considered measure of female directors; i.e., the number of board seats held by women, the number of firms with a critical mass of female directors, and the number of directorships held by each women director. © by author(s).