Gender bender organizational barriers and women’s career progression: Evidence from commercial banks in Pakistan

The study aims to investigate the effect of gender bender organizational barriers on women career progression in Commercial Banks in Pakistan. The Perceived barriers were gender stereotype, socio-cultural beliefs, organizational structure, family responsibilities and individual characteristics. To serve that purpose, specifically branches of all public and private banks in twin cities i-e Islamabad and Rawalpindi, were selected. Survey research strategy was adopted to collect data from 252 branches of selected sample. Convenience sampling and random sampling techniques were used to select sample of branches. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed among the three clusters which are top managers, middle managers and sub-ordinate. Collected data was tested on IBM SPSS by using multiple linear regression, descriptive statistics reliability and correlation analysis. The findings indicate that gender-specific organizational systems negatively affect women career progression in banks of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The theoretical support was provided by gender and feminist theories and Gendered Organizational Structure (GOS) Model” and its three sub-models.