"GLASS CEILING" PROBLEM IN RURAL AREAS IN POLAND

The opportunities for women professional advancement in rural areas are much lower compared with urban. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the role of women in management bodies of different generally public institutions conducting activity in rural areas. For analysis, the concept of "glass ceiling" was applied. The investigation was carried out on the sample of randomly chosen rural gminas (basic units of administrative division in Poland). In the paper, structures (by sex) of the authorities of leading public entities in 60 gminas were examined. The analysis results confirmed the validity of the concept of glass ceiling in rural areas in member countries of European Union and in Poland as well. It is hardly to find women on the gmina mayor position. There is a serious problem how to encourage women to apply for this position and stand as a candidate in elections. Gminas where woman is a mayor are rather small (by area and inhabitants number). Better situation is observed in gminas' councils where the proportion of women in total number of counsellors is amounted to 27 %. It corresponds with the position of women as village mayors at the village level. It is worth to mention, that in rural areas women prevail on the top positions in schools and libraries what stems from high degree of feminisation of the school and culture systems in Poland.