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3. Explaining Sex Segregation in the Workplace
Pages 37-82

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From page 37...
... In this chapter we first examine the cultural beliefs that govern common attitudes about gentler and work. We next examine 37 barriers to employment, tracing how some beliefs became embodied in laws and judicial decisions that permitted or demancled that employers treat the sexes differently, and how they continue to provide rationalizations for both intentional and unintentional labor market discrimination against women (and, less frequently, men)
From page 38...
... Regarding the relative importance of these various factors, it is our judgment that women's free occupational choices made in an open market explain only very incompletely their concentration in a small number of female-dominated occupations. While workers' choices undoubtedly contribute to the observed occupational distributions of the sexes, their labor market outcomes depend heavily on the occupational opportunity structure, on various barriers, including employers' and coworkers' preferences, and on institutionalized personnel procedures.
From page 39...
... As women from all parts of the social and economic spectrum have increased their labor force participation, the contradiction between the unclerlying belief about women's place and reality has become more visible. We can now see ways in which the belief system has been modified with changing circumstances and ways in which reality has been reconciled to the belief system (di Leonardo, 19821.
From page 40...
... For women's occupational opportunities to increase, however, the behavior of those making employment decisions must also change. Sexual relations, as well as power relations, are also relevant in the workplace, and fears of sexual relations particularly may contribute to occupational segregation.
From page 41...
... For example, women's supposed natural sense of morality suits them for raising children and bringing a civilizing influence to family life. Other stereotypes contribute directly to occupational segregation by asserting sex differences in what are alleged to be occupationaDy relevant traits.
From page 42...
... For example, employers may refuse to hire a woman in the childbearing years for certain jobs especially those that require on-thejob training because they assume that many young women will leave the labor force to have children, irrespective of any individual applicant's childbearing or labor market intentions. In a study of book publishing, Caplette (1981)
From page 43...
... An obvious example of sex typing in the mass media is classified advertisements stipulating a particular sex or segregated by sex, now not permissible under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Some sex-specific occupational titles (e.g., "lineman,""stewardess")
From page 44...
... In contrast, in the American South entire families who lacked land tenure and access to well-developed labor markets worked in the textile industry, where jobs were assigned on the basis of sex and age. Only adult men had access to the most skilled jobs.
From page 45...
... Not until the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed and litigation occurred were these laws invalidated. Those that remain
From page 46...
... , and some observers (Bell, 1979; Wright, 1979) have pointed out that employers use this policy to exclude women from betterpaying male jobs, while ignoring hazards in predominantly female occupations.5 In two Title VII challenges, Me courts recently ruled that employers may not penalize women employees under the guise of protecting them from reproductive hazards (Wright v.
From page 47...
... Nevertheless, we review them briefly, concentrating on their implications for segregation in labor markets (for more extensive discussions, see Treiman and Hartmann, 1981; Blau, 1984a, 1984b)
From page 48...
... The extent to which these conditions persist in the labor market is a matter of some dispute, however (Cain, 1984) , and one preliminary study that looks at the relationship between the propensity to hire women and profitability concludes that discrimination does impose a cost, though relatively small, on employers (Stolzenberg, 1982~.
From page 49...
... Hartmann argues that men had self-interest in maintaining women's subordinate position in the labor market so that women would continue to be economically dependent on men and perfonn household services. Many statements by union leaders during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries indicate Heir strong support for keeping women at home.
From page 50...
... increased from 2,053 in 1966 to almost 55,000 in 1983 (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 1984) or about one complaint for every 900 women in the labor force.
From page 51...
... Once workers get jobs, the job ladders that comprise their employers' internal labor markets (Doeringer and Piore, 1971) govern the occupations open to them.
From page 52...
... 2576 [19841) the Supreme Court held that the city of Memphis could apply its bona fide seniority system rather than lay offmore senior white workers while retaining minority workers with less seniority to preserve the minority percentage of the work force.
From page 53...
... studied, regulations against cross-plant bidding served to keep women segregated in predominantly female jobs in the smaller of two plants. A body of research on the New York State Civil Service system documents the segregative effect of formal promotion systems within structured job sequences (New York State Commission on Management and Productivity in the Public Sector, 1977; Peterson-Hardt and Periman, 1979; C
From page 54...
... , and forestry (Enarson, 19801. There is, however, no evidence that women entering occupations defined as male are more likely to be sexually harassed than those who work in traditionally female jobs.
From page 55...
... KauEnan's (1977) study of Only a few studies compared women and sex differences in faculty use of networks men.
From page 56...
... Next we consider how and to what extent workers' occupational choices, socialization, education, and training also help to maintain a segregated work force. SOCIALIZATION AND EDUCATION Many approach sex segregation in the workplace with the assumption that it results from women's and men's choices.
From page 57...
... . 57 sexes display considerable movement within the labor force.
From page 58...
... In addition, parents treat their male and female children differently in ways that may produce sex differences in certain characteristics (Huston, 1983~. This has been demonstrated in recent research on activities and interests.
From page 59...
... also observed a marked drop in women's preferences for several traditionally female occupations, although males showed no commensurate increase in their preference for occupations defined as female. Among black female college students who expected to be employed at age 35, between 1968 and 1973 Me proportion who thought they would work in sex-atypical occupations jumped Dom 14 to 21 percent; for whites the gain was only 2 percentage points, to 25 percent (Bn .
From page 60...
... First, does socialization produce observed pre-employment sex differences in occupational aspirations, attitudes, and expectations? Second, to what extent do preemployment sex differences contribute to occupational segregation?
From page 61...
... Our second question is whether preemployment sex differences in aspirations, at titudes, and expectations lead to sex-typical occupational choices. Again we must distinguish values and traits from occupational preferences.
From page 62...
... Education People's labor market outcomes are affected by the amount and kinc! of education they acquire as well as through more subtle processes within the educational system.
From page 63...
... For example, of women in the labor force in 1981, those who were high school dropouts were much more likely than graduates to work as operatives, laborers, private household workers, and other service workers. Of women in professional anti technical occupations, 60 percent had completed four or more years of college (U.S.
From page 64...
... have concluded that sex differences in mathematics and science training stem not from differences in ability or (for mathematics) in liking for the subject, but Tom the labeling of these subjects as male and perceptions of their utility (Wise et al., 1979; Armstrong, in National Commission for Employment Policy, 1980; for a contrasting view see Benbow and Stanley, 1983~.
From page 65...
... 14 Sex differences in college majors also contribute to job segregation, inasmuch as some college education is directly occupationally relevant. Unto recently women were heavily concentrated in education, the humanities, arts, and behavioral sciences; and men in business, engineering, physical and certain social sciences, and preprofessional training (Polachek, 1978; National Center for Education Statistics, 1981~.
From page 66...
... found that women who had already been in the labor force were more likely to consider mixed and nontraditional occupations, 16 apparently in response to their firsthand knowledge of the disadvantages of predominantly female jobs. In contrast, women who had been out of the labor force and who were insecure about reentering sought training for sex-typical occupations.
From page 67...
... Thus, VEDS data exclude students who dropped out of the programs as well as those students enrolled in programs not considered vocationally specific, e.g., home economics and industrial arts. The National Longitudinal Survey data are of higher quality but omit some variables necessary to assess the effects of vocational education on labor market outcomes (Brenner, 19811.
From page 68...
... Large application and union induction fees may be beyond the budgets of the very women motivated by economic need to consider male occupations. Conclusion In sum, women's labor market opportunities are affected by the vocational education, general education, and other socialization and training influences to which they are exposed.
From page 69...
... Despite the increasing participation of mothers of even very young children in the labor force in recent years, a substantial proportion of mothers do withdraw from the labor market to care for young children. It is not unreasonable to suppose that women's family responsibilities do affect their labor market behavior, and several theorists have argued that women choose to enter and work in occupations that accommodate their actual or anticipated family responsibilities and that such choices, in the aggregate, contribute to job segregation by sex.
From page 70...
... have argued that women's actual or expected family obligations dictate the choice of predominantly female occupations. ILis argument is derived from human capital theory and is based on the assumption that people make choices to invest in training or to pursue certain occupations with an eye toward maximizing their lifetime earnings.
From page 71...
... Wives would retain responsibility for child care and domestic work even when employed Fin time, because their primary orientation wouIcI be toward the family. They might then prefer jobs that do not require overtime, unanticipated work effort, travel, or geographic mobility or that permit flexibility and time oh in domestic emergencies, all hypothetically characteristics of some predominantly female occupations.20 Unfortunately, we have few clata either about women's preferences or the degree to which female-dominated occupations might accommodate them, but, before turning to the available empirical literature that attempts to test several variants of the human capital thesis, let us note several theoretical objections.
From page 72...
... Mincer and Ofek (1982) have refined the human capital approach to women's labor market behavior to encompass the premise that workers recover skills that depreciatecl during a period out of the labor force more rapidly than they accumulate them from scratch.
From page 73...
... Evidence also suggests, however, that the lack of adequate, affordable, and convenient child care prevents some women from participating in the labor force and limits others to jobs that they believe will accommodate their child care responsibilities. Estimates indicate that one in every five to six nonemployed women is not in the labor force because she cannot find satisfactory child care (Shortlidge, 1977; Presser and Baldwin, 19801.
From page 74...
... reviews several studies indicating that the unavailability of adequate child care prevents women from increasing their hours of employment. The 1977 Current Population Survey on child care indicated that 16 percent of employed women would work more hours if they could locate suitable child care (Presser and Baldwin, 19801.
From page 75...
... 75 THE OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURE AND SEX SEGREGATION We have reviewed evidence indicating that many factors on both the demand and the supply sicles affect labor market outcomes for men and women. We have separately examined the influence of deeply ingrained cultural beliefs, of barriers to employment, of education and socialization, and of family responsibilities on the extent and persistence of the sex segregation of jobs.
From page 76...
... The first shows women's responsiveness to labor market conditions and the actual availability of jobs regardless of prior sex labeling. The second shows that the opportunity structure is highly differentiated by sex.
From page 77...
... As Wolf (1981) 25 Several researchers have attempted to assess the impact of equal employment opportunity laws on the labor market outcomes of minorities or women (Ashenfelter and Heckman, 1976; Goldstein and Smith, 1976; Heckman and Wolpin, 1976; Belier, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982a, 1982b; Flanagan, 1976; Butler and Heckman, 1977; Brown, 1982; Osterman, 1982; Leonard, 1984a,b,c)
From page 78...
... Finally, flexibility in workers' preferences and behavior (and in the labor market as weld is demonstrated by both a fair amount of mobility by men and women between sextypical and sex-atypical occupations, as measured at the level of detailed! census occupations, and the continuing influence of structural factors on their preferences and aspirations.
From page 79...
... In any case, however, the mobility is a significant aspect of the labor market for women and men. Two additional aspects ofthe occupational opportunity structure merit ~discussion.
From page 80...
... Sex-role socialization is thought to contribute to labor market segregation by encouraging girls to be primarily responsible for domestic work and boys for breadwinning and by identifying sex-appropriate occupations. Each gender is not only socialized to perform sex-specific primary adult roles, but each is also taught the skills, vaIues, and occupational aspirations compatible with them.
From page 81...
... Women who spend more time out of the labor force are no more apt to choose female-dominated occupations than those who plan continuous employment, and female occupations do not penalize intermittent labor force participation less than maTe-dominated ones. Furthermore, any depreciation in women's occupational skills Mat does occur when they leave the labor force seems to be quickly repaired, so that long-run income losses are too small to motivate women to postpone investing in training or to select low-paying occupations that require little training.
From page 82...
... Moreover, early sex-role socialization is probably less amenable to policy intervention than are some factors that come into play later, such as tracking in schools ant! barriers women encounter in the labor market.


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