How the model minority myth holds Asian Americans back at work—and what companies should do
Image retrieved from CNBC
Though Asian Americans have some of the highest educational attainment and median incomes in the country, “the lowest rung on the poverty ladder happens to be Asian, and that is a fact that is widely ignored,” says Denise Peck, an executive advisor at the pan-Asian leadership organization Ascend Foundation….
In an analysis of national workforce data, Peck and Buck Gee, a fellow Ascend executive advisor, found that Asian American white-collar professionals are the least likely racial group to be promoted into management roles.
This promotion gap isn’t due to a lack of ambition or work ethic, experts say, but rather a combination of cultural stigma and biased, if not outright discriminatory, attitudes of those already in top management, which remains overwhelmingly white.
“Generally, Asian Americans are perceived as smart, hardworking, easy-to-manage employees,” says Gee. “The problem with that model is that we’re also seen as good workers, but not great leaders.”…
