Glass Ceiling

• Asian Pacific American men born in the United States are 7-11 percent less likely to be in managerial occupations than white men having the same education, work experience, English ability, region, marital status and industry work. (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Civil Rights Issues Facing Asian Americans in the 1990's, 1992)
• Asian Pacific American males make up 23 percent of the professional workforce but only 14 percent of the managerial workforce. Similarly, Asian Pacific American females are 17 percent of the professional workforce but only 12 percent of the managerial workforce. In contrast, non-Hispanic white males are a smaller proportion of the professional workforce, at 14 percent, but a larger part of the executive-managerial workforce, at 17 percent. (The State of Asian Pacific America: Policy Issues to the Year 2000, LEAP Asian Pacific American Public Policy Institute & UCLA Asian American Studies Center)

• Affirmative action has been very successful in increasing the representation of minorities in institutions of higher education. From 1987 to 1997, the number of Asian Americans who received bachelor's degrees more than doubled. (Seventeenth Annual Status Report on Minorities in Higher Education 1999-2000, American Council on Education, 2000)
• Asian Pacific Americans achieved increases in all degree categories from 1996 to 1997, ranging from 1.7 percent more master's degrees to 7.5 percent more associate degrees. At the bachelor's and first-professional levels, Asian Pacific Americans recorded increases of 5.6 percent and 6.3 percent respectively. (Seventeenth Annual Status Report on Minorities in Higher Education 1999-2000, American Council on Education, 2000)

• In San Francisco, Asian Pacific Americans constitute more than 20 percent of the construction contractors, but in 1989 received only one percent of the construction contracts. In 1993, after the city implemented an affirmative action program, Asian Pacific American contractors were awarded nearly three times the contract dollars previously awarded to them. (Asian Pacific Americans for Affirmative Action, We Won't Go Back!: Why Asian Pacific Americans Should Support Affirmative Action, 1996)
• Asian Pacific Americans are also underrepresented in other professions. Nationwide, Asian Pacific Americans constitute less than one percent of membership of construction unions in 1990. In New York, where Asian Pacific Americans are almost four percent of the population, they were only 0.3 percent of the members of construction unions. Asian Pacific American are only 1.4 percent of the public school teachers in the country and represent only 1.8 percent of all newspaper journalists. The State of Asian Pacific America: Policy Issues to the Year 2000, LEAP Asian Pacific American Public Policy Institute & UCLA Asian American Studies Center)
• Under the Small Business Administration's Section 8(a) program, Asian-American-owned businesses more than doubled their share of contracts in a ten-year period, getting 23.7 percent of contracts in 1996 compared to 10.5 percent of contracts in 1986. (Sharpe, Rochelle. "Asian-Americans Gain Sharply in Big Program of Affirmative Action," The Wall Street Journal, September 9, 1997)