Women accountants are still facing a glass ceiling

Published on Wednesday 6 June 2007 01:10

ACCOUNTANCY firms' "macho" working practices, including long hours and informal male networks, are hampering the efforts of female chartered accountants striving to become partners.

Despite increasing numbers of women entering the profession, many experience a "glass ceiling" in the workplace. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland's sponsored a research report, Women of ICAS Reaching the Top: The Demise of the Glass Ceiling led by Elizabeth Gammie of Robert Gordon University.

It shows that, in 2006, just 13 per cent of ICAS partners in UK practice were women. The research gathered data from 623 female members in the UK and drew on interviews with male and female partners in the "Big Four" and large firms in Scotland.

Of 220 partners working for the big four firms, Deloitte & Touche, KPMG, PwC and Ernst & Young, only 19 were female.

The consensus was that women stepped off the promotion ladder because of an inability to achieve an acceptable work-life balance, and nearly a third of women who responded felt that they had experienced workplace discrimination.

Prof Gammie, herself a chartered accountant, said: "Whilst increasing numbers of women have qualified as Scottish chartered accountants in recent years, there remains a disparity in senior positions dependent on gender, which is particularly evident at the partnership level and cannot be explained by timing issues.

"Despite evidence from women who have reached partnership that it was not necessary to put their personal and family lives on hold in order to reach the top, the organisational culture of professional accountancy firms appears to conspire against women in this quest."

Macho ethos, Pages 40 & 41