Which term describes the confinement of minorities and women to certain job types within an organization?

• A. Glass walls
• B. Glass ceilings
• C. Siloing
• D. Career trap

Answer: (A)

The idea here is horizontal barriers that keep employees confined to specific job families or types within an organization. This is captured by the term glass walls, which describes how minorities and women can be limited to certain kinds of roles and prevented from moving into other functions, even when they have the ability or interest to do so. It emphasizes movement restrictions across different tracks or departments rather than just moving upward.

For example, someone might be consistently steered toward administrative or support roles and rarely given opportunities to shift into technical, managerial, or strategic positions. That’s different from a glass ceiling, which refers to obstacles that prevent advancement to the highest levels of leadership, not restrictions on the kinds of roles someone can pursue.

Siloing describes departmental isolation and a lack of cross-functional collaboration, which is related to organizational barriers but focuses on information flow and interdepartmental interaction rather than individual career pathways. Career trap isn’t a standard term for this phenomenon and doesn’t precisely describe the idea of confinement to certain job types.