OECD says glass ceiling still exists despite high-profile female appointments. It's time to smash it

There are those who like to argue that the glass ceiling has been smashed.

Britain again has a female Prime Minister, after a leadership contest that pitted her against another woman. Theresa May could soon find herself negotiating a trade deal with Hillary Clinton, who will be America’s first woman President if she can see off Donald Trump.

Europe’s most powerful politician is Angela Merkel. And in business, GlaxoSmithKline recently announced the appointment of its first female chief executive, Emma Walmsley. If she decides to make workers redundant, she’ll have to deal with criticism from Frances O’Grady, the first female director general of the Trades Union Congress.

Between them they’ve not just smashed the glass ceiling, they’re stomping on the pieces.

Or so it would seem. Here's the problem with that analysis: the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a club of largely rich countries, has just released a report that shows that women are still struggling to reach the top.

Part of the reason that the people I mentioned above stand out is because of their rarity. In fact of the 53,000 best-paid people in the UK, just 9 per cent were women in 2013. There might now be gaps in the glass ceiling that women can ascend through. But it still exists. Alessandra Casarico, a co-author of the report, points out that women become progressively rarer the higher you climb.

Part of the problem is the way top people are recruited. Headhunters typically compile shortlists, with the final decision on hiring left to male dominated committees that tend to select people that look like their members and come from similar backgrounds. The informal networks that link these people are a powerful barrier to change.

The aforementioned Ms O’Grady wants to see more opportunities for women to work part time and more flexible working arrangements introduced to help women on the way up. That might be a start. An end to the macho culture of long hours might help. It doesn’t do anything for productivity.

There also needs to be an attitudinal change. A willingness to recognise that there is a problem in the first place and an acceptance that it will take radical action to fix it.

It is socially unjust that half the population is being shut out of the top jobs, albeit with a few exceptions. It’s also bad for business and policymaking.

It is also, however, a problem that goes well beyond society’s upper strata. Ms O’Grady once told me she was keen to see more women getting to the top, but she also wanted to see justice for those lower down. Her concerns were well founded. Just a few days ago Deloitte, the accountancy firm, released a report predicting that the gender pay gap won’t close until 2069, nearly a century after the passing of the Equal Pay Act 1970.

Society has moved on since then. But not nearly far enough.