The term "bamboo ceiling" is a concept that describes the barriers faced by many Asian Americans in the professional arena, such as stereotypes and racism, particularly with ascending to top executive and leadership positions. The term was coined and popularized in 2005 by Jane Hyun in Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Career Strategies for Asians, where she addresses those barriers while also providing solutions to overcome them. [1] [2] Hyun defines the bamboo ceiling a combination of individual, cultural, and organizational factors that impede Asian Americans' career progress inside organizations.
Since the publication of Hyun's book, a variety of sectors (including nonprofits, universities, and the government) have discussed the impact of the ceiling as it relates to people of Asian descent and the challenges they face. As described by a senior writer at Fortune magazine, "bamboo ceiling" refers to the processes and barriers that serve to exclude Asians and Asian-Americans from executive positions on the basis of subjective factors such as "lack of leadership potential" and "lack of communication skills" that cannot actually be explained by job performance or qualifications. [3] Articles regarding the subject have been written in Crains , Fortune, The Atlantic and Forbes (2016). [4] [5] [6]
The term is a derivative of the glass ceiling, which refers to the more general metaphor used to describe invisible barriers through which people of marginalized genders, and/or Black, Indigenous, and racialized peoples can see managerial positions, but cannot reach them. Similar metaphor includes canvas ceiling [7] posed on refugees and their workforce integration efforts.
Based on publicly available government statistics, Asian Americans have the lowest chance of rising to management when compared with African Americans, Hispanics, and women in spite of having the highest educational attainment. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination on the basis of race. However, covert forms of racism persist in the workforce. The Census Bureau reports that Asian Americans have the highest education levels of any racial category in the United States. Of Asian Americans, 52.4% are college graduates, while the national average is 29.9%. [14]
The bamboo ceiling in the United States is a subtle and complex form of discrimination, and the umbrella term "Asian American" extends to include a number of diverse groups, including South Asians, East Asians, and Southeast Asians. These groups are often subject to "model minority" stereotypes, and viewed as quiet, hardworking, family-oriented, high achieving in math and science, passive, non-confrontational, submissive, and antisocial. [28] In the workforce, some of these perceptions may seem positive in the short-term, but in the long-term they impede progression up the corporate and academic ladders.
While Asian Americans are often viewed as a "model minority" race, many feel that they are an invisible or "forgotten minority", despite being one of the fastest growing groups in the country. [29] Because they are generally considered ineligible for many of the minority rights of underrepresented races, and Asian Americans have been shown to be less likely to report incidents of racial discrimination in the workplace, there are far fewer institutional avenues and programs for them to combat these labels and perceptions. [30]
Some analysts attribute the racial disparity in administrative capacities to negative extensions of the aforementioned stereotypes of Asian Americans, such as common assumptions that they are "lacking in leadership skills" or that they have "poor communication abilities". [31] Asian Americans are also sometimes expected to have higher qualifications than their white counterparts, such as graduating from more prestigious universities, to achieve the same positions in American companies. [15] [31]
Many of these stereotypes and expectations have a basis in cultural misunderstandings. Some Asian Americans claim that they are raised with culture-specific values that affect perceptions of their workplace behaviour. For example, some report being taught from an early age to be self-effacing, reticent, respectful, and deferential towards authority. [3] [31] These values do not translate well into the American workplace, where Asian Americans' respectfulness can be misinterpreted as aloofness, arrogance, and inattentiveness. [3] As a result, Asian Americans are less likely to be seen as having qualities that appeal to American employers, such as leadership, charisma and risk-taking, and are often passed over for promotions in spite of satisfactory or high job performance. Asian Americans are also less likely to aggressively network, self-promote, and speak up at work meetings with concerns and ideas when compared to their coworkers. [3] Whilst Asian Americans who do are received negatively. [32] [33]
Another factor may be an existing lack of connections and Asian American role models in upper management and in politics. Until relatively recently with the Civil Rights Movement, a large number of individuals of Asian descent had few political and social rights, or were denied rights of citizenship by naturalisation. While many Asian Americans are active in political life and government positions today, their representation is still disproportionately small, and there remain unofficial barriers to political access. [34]
A survey that was taken revealed that while 83% of Asian Americans felt loyal to their jobs, only 49% felt as though they belonged in the American workforce. [35] According to researchers that study diversity and talent management, 25% of Asians surveyed said "they had felt workplace discrimination because of their ethnicity." [36] Asian American men, more than any other demographic, said they felt stalled in their careers and were more likely to quit their current jobs to search for advancement elsewhere. [36] In another survey, 66% of Asian American men and 44–50% of Asian American women said they felt their careers had stalled, showing that not only do Asian Americans face large amounts of workplace discrimination, but also that Asian American men are discriminated against more than Asian American women by a wide margin, revealing a significant gender disparity. [37]
AAPI of marginalized genders face additional barriers as a result of being both Asian American and not a cis man. [38] Articles estimate that, on average, Asian American women earned 27–40% less than Asian American men, the highest of any racial group. [12] [13]
Another commonly cited barrier, complementary to the bamboo ceiling, is the "sticky floor". When applied to the Asian American experience, the sticky floor refers to the phenomenon by which young professionals of Asian descent are often trapped in low-level, low-mobility jobs. [30] Asian Americans graduate from universities in high numbers, and firms tend to hire them in high numbers as well. However, within a few years, many claim to find themselves pigeonholed into dead-end careers with no path for advancement to upper-level corporate careers. [31] This process is visible across a number of fields, including business, [3] academia, [28] and law. [31] Even in areas where Asian Americans are believed to excel, such as software engineering, there is an overall tendency to see them assigned to low-ranking positions with fewer opportunities for advancement compared to other racial groups.[ original research? ]
The bamboo ceiling is an issue that many Asian Americans face within the workplace. It is a mix of individual, cultural, and organizational factors that hinder the growth and success of these people in office settings, mainly managerial roles. Stereotypes about Asian Americans' personality characteristics and cultural values may place them at a disadvantage in the workplace.[ original research? ]
A psychological experiment was done by two researchers on the bamboo ceiling, and their findings revealed that East Asians who do not conform to racial stereotypes of Asians and possess qualities such as assertiveness, dominance, and leadership skills are less likely to be popular in the workplace, with one researcher stating that "[i]n general, people do not want dominant co-workers, but they really do not want to work with a dominant East-Asian co-worker." [39] [40]
Wesley Yang tried to define what the force is that has held Asian Americans back, and does so by communicating that Asian Americans have a hard time with the networking and highlighting of their own accomplishments, as well as with challenging authority. He adds that Asian Americans tend to be culturally trained to be less flamboyant in the aforementioned skills, which slightly limits their ability to rise above the field in certain professions. To be successful within a managerial role or in a corporate position, it is important for an individual to know how to promote themselves in order to get ahead, but, as Yang and Hyun explain, there are cultural nuances that impede upward mobility for Asian Americans. [41]
Contrary to popular beliefs, Asian Americans do openly ask for the professional rewards they feel that they deserve, but despite their overwhelming desire to climb higher on the corporate ladder as well as the American workforce in general, Asian Americans hit barriers that prevent them from doing so. [36]
The bamboo ceiling is a socially recognized phenomenon, and a number of different methods have been proposed to help address the issue. People also advise that finding a mentor can be beneficial. Mentors are a resource commonly used by other minority groups, such as Hispanics and African Americans, to give advice and be a person to talk to about the issues being faced by their community. Groups such as Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education and Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics, Inc. provide resources for mentorship. [42] [43] For example, Linda Akutagawa, founder of Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics, Inc., explains how her company provides leadership training for Asian employees, in addition to their mentorship service. [44]
However, some people argue that it should not be the responsibility of Asian Americans to bridge the gap between the differences in their culture and the environment of the standard workplace. So there is an ongoing debate between those who believe that personal adaption is the best solution and those that there are things that the business can do to fix this issue. [45] Some companies have leadership programs designed for Asian Americans to cultivate skills and to help translate values across cultures. [25] Among these inclusive companies is Cisco, which recently created an Advanced Leadership Program for Asian-American Executives at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. The program charges $11,000 for a five-day session. [46] Instead of training Asian Americans to "be more white," some argue that instead, Asian Americans can learn to leverage their cultures and values rather than hiding them. [47]
In 2020, a series of studies conducted by researchers at MIT Sloan School of Management (Jackson G. Lu), University of Michigan (Richard E. Nisbett), and Columbia Business School (Michael W. Morris), re-investigated the Bamboo-ceiling issue in the United States. Published in PNAS, the research highlighted the importance of differentiating Americans of East Asian and South Asian descent. [48]
The research found that South Asian Americans' leadership attainment in US is significantly higher than that of East Asians. In addition, South Asians are more likely than Whites to attain leadership positions, as shown by data on the ethnicities of S&P 500 companies' CEOs and senior leadership positions. All findings controlled for demographics factors including English fluency, age, gender, education, tenure at company, personality, home country, and GDP per capita of cultural origin.[ citation needed ]
Moreover, according to the research, cultural differences in assertiveness is the main reason why East Asian Americans hit the bamboo ceiling, while South Asian Americans are able to transcend it. Compared to South Asians, East Asians are less likely to speak up, engage in constructive debates, and stand their own grounds in conflicts. The difference in culture mediated the leadership attainment gap between East Asians and South Asians in the United States. Thus, the researchers suggest that Bamboo Ceiling is not an "Asian issue", but an issue of cultural fit with the US prototype of leadership.[ citation needed ]
In 2014, Asians made up 5.6% of the U.S. population and accounted for 5.3% of people and characters shown on film. [49]
In 2015, ABC Sitcom Fresh off the Boat aired on television. This was the first time in 20 years that a show featuring predominantly Asian-Americans had been on national TV, the last one being All-American Girl in 1994, which was cancelled after one season. [50]
A major issue in the media industry has been the concept of "white-washing", where white actors and actresses are cast in roles portraying people of color. In 2015, Emma Stone was cast as Allison Ng in the romantic-comedy Aloha . Allison was supposed to be a quarter Hawaiian and a quarter Chinese, but her appearance in the film did not reflect her heritage. This casting choice led to an outcry in the community; the movie was met with negative reviews and a disappointing box office performance, which may have been due in part to the response to the casting choice. [51]
Matt Damon was cast as the lead role in the action movie The Great Wall . Actress Constance Wu from Fresh off the Boat chimed in, stating that Hollywood will find a way to cast white actors no matter what – even in a film set in China 1,000 years ago. [52]
In the United States, Asians are stereotyped as being physically and athletically inferior to other races. [53] This has led to much discrimination in the recruitment process of professional American sports where Asian American athletes are now highly underrepresented. [54] [55] [56] [57] In 2015, despite making up 5.6% of the nation's population, Asian American athletes only represented 1.1% of the NFL and 1.2% of the MLB, and as of 2014 0.2% of the NBA. [58] [59] [60]
Basketball is a sport noted for its low number of Asian athletes, despite the fact that the sport's color barrier was broken by an Asian American athlete named Wataru Misaka in 1947. Misaka was the first person of color to play in the NBA. [61] The Utah native played for the New York Knicks.
In American sports, there are and has been a higher representation of Asian American athletes who are of mixed racial heritage in comparison to those of full racial heritage. For instance, former football player Roman Gabriel was the first Asian-American to start as an NFL quarterback and was only of half Southeast Asian descent (Filipino).
In 2016, 2.6% (14/535) of the members of Congress were Asian Americans, compared to 5.6% of the total population in the United States. Proportional representation would necessitate 30 members out of the 535 in order to mirror the US population. [62]
As of 2015, less than 2% of Fortune 500 CEOs are Asian, although they comprise 5.6% of the total United States population, and about 30% of the graduates in the top 20 MBA programs in the last 20 years. [63]
Aside from corporate underrepresentation, some believe there is also a bias against students applying to colleges. [64] This existing bias is explained by professor of Public Policy at University of California Riverside, Karthick Ramakrishan, as having a predetermined and singular idea of what an Asian student should be like. This idea of expecting a specific kind of Asian is referred to as being the "model minority". This concept can be explained as a driving factor in admissions process that hurts Asian Americans by having a certain expectation for these students because they are believed to be the "model minority". According to model minority, if an Asian student does not fit into the stereotypical mold, they are seen as useless to the college. [65] Asian-American organizations asked the Department of Education in 2016 to investigate Brown University, Dartmouth College and Yale University, alleging they discriminate against Asian-American students during the admissions process. [66] In other parts of the educational field, Asian Americans are underrepresented in the areas of college admissions and university leadership positions. In addition to this existing bias, there is also the marginalization of Asian American academics in positions of power with only 1% of them reaching the status of university presidents and chancellors despite 7% of the faculty being made up of people who are of Asian descent. In a study conducted by Bryan S. K. Kim, Donald R. Atkinson, and Peggy H. Yang, these disproportionate numbers were attributed to values commonly seen in Asian households that were passed down from parents to children even when living in the United States. These values included "deference to authority figures, respect for elders, self-effacement, [and,] restraint". (Khator, Renu) These practices commonly associated with people of Asian heritage allow for a strong bias to grow against Asian Americans in higher up university positions as administrators begin to believe that they "either have no interest in leadership opportunities or simply won't be good at it" because the traits associated with Asian Americans do not adhere to typical western ideals of leadership (Oguntoyinbo 10). Many Asian Americans such as Frank Wu, chancellor and dean of the University of California Hastings College of the Law, are frustrated with stereotypes like these due to several contradicting facts such as "Asian Americans [being] overrepresented in the academy as students, graduate students and faculty members" and still being barely represented (or sometimes even considered) for upper level academic positions. [42]
In an article by Peggy Li, this topic is addressed as she presents an argument stating that neither of the movements to break down the barriers of the glass or bamboo ceiling works in favor of Asian American women because of these intersecting identities. This unspoken patriarchal hierarchy leads to the exclusion of AAPI im/migrant sex workers within Asian communities. The classism and misogyny in Asian communities are being pushed to the side in order to focus on issues that impact cis men in leadership roles and cis men-dominated fields (business or politics).[ dubious ] Li continues by attributing this lack of intersectionality to the leadership of the movements.[ clarification needed ] According to Li, in the fight to break the bamboo ceiling, men are making a majority, if not all, the decisions. [38]
Asians are disproportionally represented in highly paid jobs such as education, medical and tech fields. [67] While Asians only account for 5.6% of the US population, they hold a little less than 19% of management positions in the Silicon Valley tech industry. However, Asians make up more than 50.1% percent of the Silicon Valley tech industry workforce as a whole. [68] This means that while they may be overrepresented in management positions compared to their prevalence in the US population, they are still less likely to advance from a lower position.
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry. Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peoples of the continent of Asia, the usage of the term "Asian" by the United States Census Bureau only includes people with origins or ancestry from the Far East, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent and excludes people with ethnic origins in certain parts of Asia, including West Asia who are now categorized as Middle Eastern Americans. Furthermore, Central Asians are not mentioned in any census racial category. The "Asian" census category includes people who indicate their race(s) on the census as "Asian" or reported entries such as "Chinese, Indian, Bangladeshi, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Pakistani, Malaysian, and Other Asian". In 2020, Americans who identified as Asian alone (19,886,049) or in combination with other races (4,114,949) made up 7.2% of the U.S. population.
A glass ceiling is a metaphor usually applied to people of marginalized genders, used to represent an invisible barrier that prevents an oppressed demographic from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy. No matter how invisible the glass ceiling is expressed, it is actually an obstacle difficult to overcome. The metaphor was first used by feminists in reference to barriers in the careers of high-achieving women. It was coined by Marilyn Loden during a speech in 1978.
The term model minority refers to a minority group, defined by factors such as ethnicity, race, or religion, whose members are perceived to be achieving a higher socioeconomic status in comparison to the overall population average. Consequently, these groups are often regarded as a role model or reference group for comparison to external groups (outgroups). This success is typically assessed through metrics including educational attainment, representation within managerial and professional occupations, household income, and various other socioeconomic indicators such as criminal activity and strong family and marital stability. The prominent association of the model minority concept is with Asian Americans within the United States. Additionally, analogous concepts of classism have been observed in numerous European countries, leading to the stereotyping of specific ethnic groups.
Tokenism is the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to be inclusive to members of minority groups, especially by recruiting people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of racial or gender equality within a workplace or educational context. The effort of including a token individual in work or school is usually intended to create the impression of social inclusiveness and diversity.
Employment discrimination is a form of illegal discrimination in the workplace based on legally protected characteristics. In the U.S., federal anti-discrimination law prohibits discrimination by employers against employees based on age, race, gender, sex, religion, national origin, and physical or mental disability. State and local laws often protect additional characteristics such as marital status, veteran status and caregiver/familial status. Earnings differentials or occupational differentiation—where differences in pay come from differences in qualifications or responsibilities—should not be confused with employment discrimination. Discrimination can be intended and involve disparate treatment of a group or be unintended, yet create disparate impact for a group.
Asian Australians are Australians of Asian ancestry, including naturalised Australians who are immigrants from various regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants. At the 2021 census, the proportion of the population identifying as Asian amounted to approximately 17.4 percent with breakdowns of 6.5 percent from Southern and Central Asia, 6.4 percent from North-East Asia, and 4.5 percent from South-East Asia.
Stereotypes of East Asians in the United States are ethnic stereotypes found in American society about first-generation immigrants and their American-born descendants and citizenry with East Asian ancestry or whose family members who recently emigrated to the United States from East Asia, as well as members of the Chinese diaspora whose family members emigrated from Southeast Asian countries. Stereotypes of East Asians, analogous to other ethnic and racial stereotypes, are often erroneously misunderstood and negatively portrayed in American mainstream media, cinema, music, television, literature, video games, internet, as well as in other forms of creative expression in American culture and society. Many of these commonly generalized stereotypes are largely correlative to those that are also found in other Anglosphere countries, such as in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, as entertainment and mass media are often closely interlinked between them.
Diversity, in a business context, is hiring and promoting employees from a variety of different backgrounds and identities. Those characteristics may include various legally protected groups, such as people of different religions or races, or backgrounds that are not legally protected, such as people from different social classes or educational levels. A business or group with people from a variety of backgrounds is called diverse; a business or group with people who are very similar to each other is not diverse.
Since the industrial revolution, participation of women in the workforce outside the home has increased in industrialized nations, with particularly large growth seen in the 20th century. Largely seen as a boon for industrial society, women in the workforce contribute to a higher national economic output as measure in GDP as well as decreasing labor costs by increasing the labor supply in a society.
Occupational inequality is the unequal treatment of people based on gender, sexuality, age, disability, socioeconomic status, religion, height, weight, accent, or ethnicity in the workplace. When researchers study trends in occupational inequality they usually focus on distribution or allocation pattern of groups across occupations, for example, the distribution of men compared to women in a certain occupation. Secondly, they focus on the link between occupation and income, for example, comparing the income of whites with blacks in the same occupation.
Occupational segregation is the distribution of workers across and within occupations, based upon demographic characteristics, most often gender. Other types of occupational segregation include racial and ethnicity segregation, and sexual orientation segregation. These demographic characteristics often intersect. While a job refers to an actual position in a firm or industry, an occupation represents a group of similar jobs that require similar skill requirements and duties. Many occupations are segregated within themselves because of the differing jobs, but this is difficult to detect in terms of occupational data. Occupational segregation compares different groups and their occupations within the context of the entire labor force. The value or prestige of the jobs are typically not factored into the measurements.
There are stereotypes of various groups of people which live within the United States and contribute to its culture. Worldwide, a disproportionately high number of people know about these stereotypes, due to the transmission of American culture and values via the exportation of American-made films and television shows.
The feminization of the workplace is the feminization, or the shift in gender roles and sex roles and the incorporation of women into a group or a profession once dominated by men, as it relates to the workplace. It is a set of social theories seeking to explain occupational gender-related discrepancies.
Second-generation immigrants in the United States are individuals born and raised in the United States who have at least one foreign-born parent. Although the term is an oxymoron which is often used ambiguously, this definition is cited by major research centers including the United States Census Bureau and the Pew Research Center.
Women in positions of power are women who hold an occupation that gives them great authority, influence, and/or responsibility in government or in businesses. Historically, power has been distributed among the sexes disparately. Power and powerful positions have most often been associated with men as opposed to women. As gender equality increases, women hold more and more powerful positions in different sectors of human endeavors.
Cultural competence in healthcare refers to the ability for healthcare professionals to demonstrate cultural competence toward patients with diverse values, beliefs, and feelings. This process includes consideration of the individual social, cultural, and psychological needs of patients for effective cross-cultural communication with their health care providers. The goal of cultural competence in health care is to reduce health disparities and to provide optimal care to patients regardless of their race, gender, ethnic background, native languages spoken, and religious or cultural beliefs. Cultural competency training is important in health care fields where human interaction is common, including medicine, nursing, allied health, mental health, social work, pharmacy, oral health, and public health fields.
The STEM pipeline is a critical infrastructure for fostering the development of future scientists, engineers, and problem solvers. It's the educational and career pathway that guides individuals from early childhood through to advanced research and innovation in STEM-related fields.
Diversity in computing refers to the representation and inclusion of underrepresented groups, such as women, people of color, individuals with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ individuals, in the field of computing. The computing sector, like other STEM fields, lacks diversity in the United States.
An underrepresented group describes a subset of a population that holds a smaller percentage within a significant subgroup than the subset holds in the general population. Specific characteristics of an underrepresented group vary depending on the subgroup being considered.
According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), women and racial minorities are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Scholars, governments, and scientific organizations from around the world have noted a variety of explanations contributing to this lack of racial diversity, including higher levels of discrimination, implicit bias, microaggressions, chilly climate, lack of role models and mentors, and less academic preparation.
He lasted just three games but is remembered as the first non-Caucasian player in modern professional basketball, three years before African-Americans were included.