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Abstract
The purpose of this paper was to study the impact of societal barriers on women’s advancement to top management in the Eastern Caribbean. The population was female managers in the Eastern Caribbean. The three barriers examined were demographic variables, work-life conflict and the glass ceiling. The dependent variable was women’s advancement to top management. This was a quantitative study, which utilized a closed-ended, structured survey. The data was collected from 106 women in managerial positions in the Eastern Caribbean. Multiple regression was used to analyze the data. The overall findings were that the three societal barriers had an inverse relationship with women’s advancement to top management. Of the three barriers investigated, the glass ceiling had the highest significant impact on women’s advancement to top management positions. The results of demographic variables and work-life conflict deviated from past studies. This research recommended that organizations should allocate their limited resources to create initiatives that foster more gender equality, by prioritizing the barriers with the highest impact, such as the glass ceiling. This was the first study of its kind in the Eastern Caribbean.

Keywords: Eastern Caribbean, glass ceiling, work-life conflict, demographic variables, career advancement

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