Much recent work has examined the claim that women encounter increasing obstacles relative to men as they move up the organizational ladder in business. This proposition, which we term the increasing-disadvantage model, is a core element of the popular glass ceiling metaphor. Despite continued widespread public acceptance of the glass ceiling idea and some consistent findings, most research to date has failed to support the increasing-disadvantage model. Indeed, several studies based on private-sector firms find that women's mobility prospects improve, rather than decline, as they climb upward in corporate hierarchies. In the public sector, researchers have found either no sex differences in mobility or a larger female disadvantage in lower grades. Comparing cross-sectional national samples of workers, Baxter and Wright found no evidence in the United States, and only limited evidence in Sweden and Australia, that women's probability of being located in a higher versus a lower hierarchical level declined relative to men's at higher levels. Taken together, these findings suggest that the glass ceiling may be a myth. Women's scarcity in top organizational ranks may simply represent the cumulative effect of a constant – or even decreasing – disadvantage at successive hierarchical levels.