Constraints for Women Career Development in Hotel Industry in Sri Lanka

Abstract

In recent decades the work force composition has been dramatically changed. Though workforce consists with both male and female employees, there is a dissimilarity between men and women participation in the labor market in terms of access to divers economic opportunities. Although women are important to economic growth for any country, there are number of barriers that hinders them from reaching their full potential. Hotel industry being one of the largest contributor in economic development, presents an extensive range of income generating career prospects for women both formally and informally while providing ample number of opportunities for women’s participation in the workforce, women’s entrepreneurship, and women’s leadership than any other sector in the economy. However, there is a high inequality in women’s empowerment and career advancements in the hotel industry especially in the developing countries like Sri Lanka. In recent years, the increased number of women in the hotel industry and their under representation in top management positions has made women’s status in the industry a great concern. Hence, this study aims at investigating the constraints that obstructs women employees from their career progress in hotel industry. The whole population of 103 women employees, work in standard hotels in Jaffna were taken as the respondents. A self-administered structured questionnaire was employed to gather data. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in analyzing data using SPSS statistical software. The major findings were drawn through a factor analysis. The findings disclose seven key constraints; negative training factor and work family conflict, women marital factors, cultural barriers, gender inequality barriers, work place support and security barriers, organizational barriers and negative family motivation, and staff conflict factors. Hence, providing adequate training facilities, motivational programs and mentoring, introducing nondiscriminatory payment, training and promotional policies, and creating a conducive working environment giving due emphasis for the safety aspect could be recommended to overcome these constraints.