Broken Rung
The first promotion to manager, where women fall behind men and never catch up. Not a ceiling at the top — a missing step near the bottom of the ladder.
Full definition of Broken Rung →:: COMPARE ::
Broken rungvsGlass ceiling
The short answer
Fixing the ceiling without fixing the rung leaves you promoting from a pool that already thinned at manager level. The ceiling is the more famous metaphor and has its own research behind it; the rung is the one with a promotion count published every year.
Side by side
| Aspect | Broken rung | Glass ceiling |
|---|---|---|
| Location | First promotion | Near the top |
| People affected | Very many | Few |
| Quantified | Precisely | Loosely |
| Fixable by quotas | Not really | Partly |
What each one means
Glass Ceiling
An unacknowledged barrier that stops someone rising past a certain level, however qualified — originally and still mainly about women, and extended to other groups held back the same way. Invisible because nobody writes it down.
Full definition of Glass Ceiling →