those higher levels."
# "A gender or racial inequality that increases over the course of a career."Cotter and colleagues found that glass ceilings are correlated strongly with gender, with both white and minority women facing a glass ceiling in the course of their careers. In contrast, the researchers did not find evidence of a glass ceiling for African-American men.

The glass ceiling metaphor has often been used to describe invisible barriers ("glass") through which women can see elite positions but cannot reach them ("ceiling").