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OCR for page 11
Trends In Occupadonal Segreggdon
by Sex and Race, 1960 1981
ANDREA H. BELLER
Interest among economists in occupa-
tional sex segregation stems from the fairly
well established relationship between the
sex differential in earnings and women's
concentration in a small number of occu-
pations. It also stems from a family-based
analysis of women's roles, although this con-
nection continues to be controversial. Such
an analysis says that because of their family
roles, women invest less in market-oriented
human capital than men do (Becker, 1981),
and this includes choosing traditionally fe-
male occupations (Polachek, 19791. Recent
empirical studies tend to refute this expla-
nation of sex differences in occupational
choices (Belier, 1982b; Corcoran and Dun-
can, 1979; England, 19821. While untan-
gling the causes of occupational sex segre-
gation has proved an ambitious challenge,
measuring its trends is no less difficult.
This paper assesses the trends in occu-
pational segregation of the sexes during the
1970s and compares them with those of the
1960s. A number of studies have examined
changes in occupational segregation be-
tween census years: 1900-1960 (Gross, 1968),
1950-1970 (Blau and Hendricks, 1979), 1960-
1970 (Economic Report of the President,
11
1973), and 1950-1970 among professional oc-
cupations (Fuchs, 1975~. Using the index of
segregation from the Duncan Index (Dun-
can and Duncan, 1955), these studies con-
cur.in the relative lack of change noted in
occupational segregation through 1960 and
the small decline during the 1960s. (The
decline of sex segregation in the professional
occupations during the 1960s was somewhat
greater than that for all occupations.)
With the strengthening of equal employ-
ment opportunity (EEO) legislation and the
promulgation of equal educational oppor-
tunity legislation in 1972, one might have
anticipated an accelerated decline in occu-
pational segregation during the 1970s.
Moreover, there is a general perception that
many women are becoming increasingly ori-
ented toward nontraditional family roles and
nontraditional jobs in the workplace.) Sur-
prisingly, the index of segregation remained
unchanged through 1976 or 1977, according
to two recent works (Lloyd and Niemi, 1979;
~ See, for example, Cherlin and Walters (1981) and
Mason et al. (1976~.
OCR for page 12
12
ANDREA H. BELLER
U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, 19781. The
segregation indexes computed by these
studies (as well as by Blau and Hendricks
and by Fuchs) are presented in Appendix
B. Table By-. But findings from other studies
seem to conflict with these reports of no
change. Beller (1982b) showed that EEO
laws reduced occupational segregation by
1974 and that EEO laws combined with equal
educational opportunity legislation in-
creased the effects of years of college com-
pleted on women's entry into nontraditional
occupations between 1971 and 1977, espe-
cially among new entrants (Belier, 1982a).
The reason these studies detected no change
is a lack of comparability between the two
data sets they used to compute the segre-
gation indexes. In fact, I have found that the
index of segregation declined from 68.32 in
1972 to 64.65 in 1977 and 61.66 in 1981, a
rate of decline almost three times as large
as that during the 1960s.
In the next section, the trends in occu-
pational segregation from 1971 to 1981 are
documented and compared with those of the
1960s. Trends in segregation among all oc-
cupations, among professional occupations,
and among college majors are discussed. An
analysis of cohort differences in occupational
segregation during the 1970s follows. I then
compare and contrast changes in the sex
composition of detailed occupations during
the 1960s and the 1970s. Finally, race dif-
ferences in trends in occupational segrega-
tion are presented.
MEASUREMENT AND DATA
Trends in occupational segregation are
commonly measured by the index of seg-
regation (Duncan and Duncan, 19551. The
index is defined as follows:
St = i/22 mit—fit |
where mi' = the percentage of the male
labor force employee! in occupation i in year
t, and fit = the percentage of the female
labor force employed in occupation i in year
t. The index may take on a value between
O and 100, where zero represents perfect
integration and 100 represents complete
segregation. The number tells the propor-
tion of women (or men) that would have to
be redistributed among occupations for the
occupational distribution to reach complete
equality between the sexes.
The index of segregation has two com-
ponents, labeled the mix effect and the com-
position effect by Blau and Hendricks (1979~.
The value of the index depends on both the
relative size of various occupations and the
sex composition within occupations.2 Changes
in the index thus derive from two sources:
changes in the occupational distribution and
changes in the entry of the sexes into various
occupations. (It also depends on the inter-
action of the two.) These changes may be in
reinforcing or opposing directions. Signs of
progress within occupations, for example,
could be masked by unusual growth in oc-
cupations that are predominantly single sex.
A standardization procedure can be used to
determine the influence of each of these two
effects. For example, to determine the ef-
fect of changes in the sex composition within
occupations on the changes in the segre-
gation index from year t - 1 to year t, the
index of segregation for year t can be com-
puted standarclizing the size of occupations
to year t - 1. Thus, the employment stand-
ardized index of segregation holds constant
the distribution of employment across oc-
cupations (occupational mix) and enables one
2 The value of the index may also depend on the
degree of aggregation of the occupations. Typically, the
greater the degree of aggregation, i.e., the fewer the
occupations, the lower the level of measured segre-
gation. For this reason, in comparing indexes over time,
one should use the same number of occupations at the
same degree of aggregation. This methodological issue
is discussed in England (1981).
OCR for page 13
TRENDS IN OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION BY SEX AND RACE
13
to observe the effects of changes in the sex
composition within occupations alone.3
Similarly, to observe the effects of changes
in the occupational structure alone, the pro-
portion standardized index of segregation can
be computed holding constant the sex com-
position at year t - 1 and using the em-
ployment distribution of year t. (Standard-
izing by the size of occupations in year t -
1 arbitrarily assigns the interaction term in
one direction. Standardizing by the size of
occupations in year t would assign the in-
teraction term in the other direction. ~ These
standardization procedures can also be ap-
plied to a given year to determine how the
index of subgroup j differs from that of the
population as a whole. This allows us to de-
compose the index of the subgroup into the
effects of occupational mix and sex compo-
sition. For example, by standardizing the
segregation index of the youngest cohort to
the occupational mix of the whole labor force,
it can be seen how the sex composition within
occupations for the youngest cohort differs
from that of the rest of the labor force.
To assess trends in occupational segre-
gation during the 1970s, I used data from
the Current Population Survey (CPS) con-
ducted monthly by the U.S. Bureau of the
Census. Data for the years 1971-1974 and
1977 used for the detailed analyses pre-
sented in this paper come from the March
Annual Demographic Files (ADF) of the CPS.
Me ADF data are supplemented here with
more recent data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics' (BLS) annual averages (AA), tab-
3 The employment standardized index of segregation
is defined as follows:
Si*t = i/22 | m* - ~ i,
where ml*` = (M`,lT`~) (Tan) (100~/~ (MiiTi`) (Ti`-~),
fit = (F`,lT`~) (T`~_~) (100~/~ (F,jTit) (Tit_~), Fit = the
number of females in occupation i in year t, M`' = the
number of males in occupation i in year t, and T`` =
F.` + M`` = total employment in occupation i in year
t.
ulated by the BLS from the monthly CPS.4
More detail on these sources and on issues
of comparability and the choice of occupa-
tions included in the sample are discussed
in Appendix A. As discussed there, the CPS
occupational data collected during the 1970s
are not comparable to the 1970 census data
even though the same occupation codes are
used, because the Census Bureau changed
its method of assigning individuals to oc-
cupations in December 1971. Hence, sta-
tistics based on these two sources should not
be compared. Although their reliability dif-
fers (see Appendix A), I make some com-
parisons between the two different sources
of CPS data in order to include 1981 data
in the analysis. The 1960 and 1970 census
occupational data are used to show trends
during the 1960s; these data were made
comparable by the Census Bureau's recod-
ing of the 1960 data according to the 1970
occupation codes (U. S. Bureau of the Cen-
sus, 1972~.
TRENDS IN OCCUPATIONAL
SEGREGATION, 1960-1981
Occupational segregation of the sexes de-
clined continuously during the 1970s at a
4 Data on occupations for 1971-1974 and 1977 come
from the 1972-1975 and 1978 Annual Demographic Files,
which are available on public-use computer tapes. These
files contain considerable demographic detail, making
it possible to cross-classify occupation by such char-
acterisffcs as labor market experience, which is done
later in this paper. These were the only years for which
I had these data at the time of this writing. To incor-
porate more recent data than 1977, I obtained from
the BLS unpublished tabulations of annual averages
(AA) for 1981; to ascertain comparability between the
AA and the ADF data, I also obtained these tabulations
for 1977 and for 1972, the earliest year for which they
are available. (The cooperation of Elizabeth Waldman
and Jack Bregger of the BLS, who made these data
available expeditiously, is gratefully acknowledged.)
These data are not cross-classified by demographic
characteristics. Thus, while overall trends can be as-
sessed through 1981, cohort trends can be assessed
only through 1977.
OCR for page 14
14
ANDREA H. BELLER
rate that exceeded the decline during the
1960s. Ike index of segregation declined Tom
68.32 in 1972 to 61.66 in 1981, according to
the BLS AA data. According to the ADF, it
declined Tom 68.14 In 1971 to 64.15 In 1977,
and the decline occurred continuously over
the intervening years. These indexes, which
are computed over a common group of 262
three-digit census occupations, appear in
Table 2-1, lines 2 and 3. For comparison
purposes, indexes of segregation for 1960
and 1970 computed from the decennial cen-
sus over the same 262 occupations are in-
cluded. According to Census Bureau data,
the index declined from 68.69 in 1960 to
65.90 in 1970.
As pointed out earlier, the index levels
are not comparable across data sets, but
trends in one data set should be comparable
to trends in the other as long as compara-
bility has been established within each data
set. Between 1972 and 1981 the index of
segregation declined at an average annual
rate nearly three times as high as during the
1960s, i. e., - 0.74 compared with - 0.28.
These figures appear in the bottom part of
Table 2-1. The annual rate of decline in the
segregation index appears to have acceler-
ated slightly in the mid-1970s and to have
remained steady through 1981.
To decompose the change in the segre-
gation index during the 1970s, I have stand-
ardized it to the employment my at the
beginning of the decade. As mentioned
above, we want to make comparisons only
within a data set, so we standardize the Cen-
TABLE 2-1 Segregation Indexes, 1960-1981, All Occupations
Census
1960 1970 1971 1972 1973
Index Level
CPS
1974 1977 1981
Unstandardized
Census 68.69 65.90
Annual Demographic
File (ADF) - 68.14 67.36 67.09 66.39 64.15
Annual Averages (AA) - — 68.32 64.65 61.66
Employment Standardized
Census (1970) 68.06 65.90
ADF (1972) — — 67.99 67.36 66.97 66.64 64.49 —
AA (1972) — 68.32 — 65.18 62.88
Change in Index
Average Annual Rate of Change
1960-1970 1971-1974 1974-1977 1977-1981 1972-1981
-0.28
Unstandardized
Census
ADF
AA
Employment Standardized
Census (1970)
ADF (1972)
AA (1972)
.
NOTE: These indexes are based on a common group of 262 three-digit census occupations.
SOURCE: U.S. Commerce Department, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1970, Detailed
Characteristics, Final Report PC(l)-Dl, U.S. Summary (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1973), Table 221; Annual Demographic Files of Current Population Survey, 1972-1975 and 1978, computer tapes;
and Bureau of Labor Statistics, annual averages of monthly Current Population Surveys, 1972, 1977, and 1981,
unpublished tabulations.
-0.58 -0.75
Total
Change
1972-1981
_ _ -0.75 -0.74 -6.66
-0.22
-0.45 -0.72
-0.56 -0.60 -5.44
OCR for page 15
TRENDS IN OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION BY SEX AND RACE
15
sus Bureau data to 1970 and the ADF and
AA data to 1972. Employment standardized
indexes reveal the amount of the change in
segregation that is clue to changes in sex
composition within occupations of a fixed
size, the composition effects. As shown in
Table 2-1, the employment standardized
segregation index declined from 68.32 in 1972
to 62.88 in 1981, or by almost as much as
the unstandardized index declined. Thus,
most of the decline in the segregation index
during the 1970s was due to changes in the
sex composition within occupations, but the
employment distribution also shifted slightly
toward a less segregated work force.
Professional occupations continued dur-
ing the 1970s to be less segregated than the
work force as a whole ant! to experience a
somewhat larger clecline in segregation. The
segregation index for 59 professional occu-
pations declined from 59.44 in 1972 to 50.55
in 1981, according to the annual averages
data. This yields an average annual rate of
decline of nearly 1 percentage point, 0.99.
Since these occupations are composed pri-
marily of individuals with a college degree,
it is instructive to examine an inclex of seg-
regation for earned bachelor's degrees con-
ferred on men and women by field of study.
These data, published annually by the Na-
tional Center for Education Statistics (NCES),
are based on the distribution of all degrees
granted by all accredited degree-granting
institutions in the Unitec! States during a
specific academic year.5 The segregation in-
dex computed over college majors declined
s These data are taken from National Center for Ed-
ucation Statistics, Projections of Education Statistics to
1988-89, by Martin M. Frankel and Debra E. Gerald,
April 1980. flue original sources for the major portion
of these data are the annual NCES reports on Earned
Degrees Conferred. Further information came from
". . . education and professional associations, experts
in other academic areas, and other agencies in the fed-
eral government . . ." (as cited in NCES, April 1980,
p. 49~. The numbers in this report differ slightly from
the ones for the same year published in Earned Degrees
Conferred.
from 46.08 in 1969 to 35.62 in 1978. The
average annual rate of decline in this index
is 1.16 per year.6 Thus, segregation by field
of study among bachelor's degree recipients
declined rapidly during the 1970s, followed
by the professional occupations, and, finally,
the work force as a whole.
COHORT DIFFERENCES IN
OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION,
1971-1977
Was the decline in occupational segre-
gation by sex during the 1970s distributed
throughout the labor force or concentrated
in groups most able to take advantage of
improved access to nontraditional jobs and
opportunities for advancement? Beller (1982a)
found the effect of equal employment op-
portunity legislation between 1971 and 1977
to be largest among college-educated new
and recent entrants into the labor market.
That is, compared to 1971, the chances of
women with 1-10 years of potential labor
market experience (new entrants) in 1977 or
with 7-16 years (recent entrants) finding em-
ployment in a nontraditional occupation in-
creased more than for older cohorts in 1977.
Recent entrants in 1977, who were new en-
trants in 1971, found increased opportuni-
ties to move into nontraditional occupations
as they aged over this period.
To examine changes in occupational seg-
regation by cohort, I stratified the labor force
by potential work experience, defined as
Age—Education—6, as in this previous
study. Using the ADF data for 1971 and
l9T7, I stratified women and men into groups
with the following years of experience (EX-
PER): 1-10, 7-16, and 11-40+. I believe
that new and recent labor market entrants
are best able to benefit from improved op-
portunities, and I hypothesize that young
6 The index of segregation did not decline for post-
graduate degrees; however, it is at a lower level than
for bachelor's degrees (Belier and Han, in press).
OCR for page 16
6
ANDREA H. BELLER
cohorts will show greater changes than older
cohorts. If access to nontraditional occupa-
tions increases, new entrants will have more
opportunities to enter the occupational
structure at preferred points than older co-
horts with the same education. Since ad-
justments in education can only occur with
some lag, new entrants also have the great-
est opportunities to acquire more education
and to alter their field of study in response
to perceptions of improved opportunities in
the labor market. In general, the educa-
tional attainment of younger cohorts of
women is higher than of older cohorts, and
women are increasingly likely to obtain ad-
ditional degrees at all degree levels (Belier
and Han, 1984~. Recent entrants in the early
stages of their careers can take advantage of
new opportunities for advancement.7 Thus,
I compared new entrants into the labor mar-
ket (EXPER = 1-10) with the rest of the
labor force (EXPER = 11-40+), new en-
trants in 1971 with new entrants in 1977,
and new entrants in 1971 (EXPER = 1-10)
with themselves 6 years later in 1977 (EX-
PER = 7-161. We can see how segregated
the youngest cohort is compared with the
rest of the labor force, how segregated the
entering cohort is at the beginning com-
pared with the mid-1970s, and how much
change in occupational segregation the 1971
entering cohort experienced as it aged.
The segregation indexes for these expe-
rience cohorts appear in Table 2-2. The
youngest cohort is less segregated than the
remainder of the labor force in both 1971
and 1977, and segregation declined for all
7 While these arguments and data strongly suggest
that the results should be stronger for young cohorts,
a potential bias in our results exists in that the sex
difference in actual experience probably widens with
potential experience. Ibus, stronger results for younger
cohorts might be related to the actual versus potential
experience issue. In the absence of comparable cohort
data prior to 1971, it wasn't possible to assess the effect
of such a potential bias.
TABLE 2-2 Segregation Indexes by
Experience Cohort
Experience Cohort
Unstandardized
1-10 67.47
7-16 69.94
11-40 + 69.36
Standardized to Employment
of Whole Labor Force
1-10 67.44
7-16 69.07
11-40+ 69.13
Standardized to Proportions
of Whole Labor Force
1-10
7-16
11-40 +
NOTE: The indexes are computed on the basis of
258 occupations. Occupations with no employment in
any experience cohort were dropped from all groups.
SOURCE: Current Population Survey, Annual De-
mographic Files, computer tapes.
1971
1977
Change
1971-1977
62.51
64.03
66.31
61.96
64.89
66.65
67.78
68.54
67.84
64.35
63.93
63.69
-4.96
-5.91
-3.05
-5.48
-4.18
-2.48
-3.43
-4.61
-4.15
groups over this period. The differential be-
tween the youngest cohort and the rest of
the labor force widened over time, how-
ever, as segregation decreased more rapidly
in the youngest cohort as hypothesized. The
segregation index for this group (EXPER =
1-10) declined from 67.47 in 1971 to 62.51
in 1977, or by 0.83 percentage points per
year, while the index for the remainder of
the labor force (EXPER = 11-40+) de-
clined from 69.36 to 66.31, or by 0.51 points
per year. During this period the decline is
greatest not for the youngest cohort but for
the group with 7-16 years of potential work
experience. For this group (EXPER = 7-
16) the segregation index declined from 69.94
in 1971 to 64.03 in 1977, or by 0.99 points
per year. If we follow the entering cohort
in 1971 for 6 years to 1977 (EXPER = 7-
16), we find that the segregation index de-
clined within this cohort by 3.44 percentage
points from 67.47 to 64.03, or by 0.57 points
per year. The entering cohort in 1971 be-
came less segregated as it aged through 1977
OCR for page 17
TRENDS IN OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION BY SEX AND RACE
. .
17
when the entering cohort is less segregated
than in 1971. This implies that each entering
cohort is less segregated than in the past
and experiences a greater decline in seg-
regation as it ages.
To decompose these cohort changes in
occupational segregation, I standarclized each
subgroup to the whole labor force in each
year. To determine how segregated this group
would be if it had the same occupational mix
as the labor force as a whole but maintained
its own sex composition within occupations,
I standardized the segregation index to the
occupational mix of the whole (employment
standardized). To determine how segre-
gated this group would be if it had the same
sex composition within occupations as the
whole but its own occupational mix, I stand-
ardized to the sex composition within oc-
cupations of the whole (proportion stan(l-
arclized).
As it turns out, the occupational mix is
quite similar across cohorts; the employ-
ment standardized indexes are nearly iden-
tical to the unstandardized indexes. What
this implies is that, while the occupational
distribution does not differ between older
and younger generations as a whole, the sex
composition within occupations differs sub-
stantially between recent and older cohorts.
Thus, for example, while approximately the
same proportion of the youngest and the
older cohorts are accountants, a higher pro-
portion of youthful than of older accountants
are women. The proportion standardized in-
dexes for 1977 show that the youngest co-
hort (EXPER = 1-10) would be much more
segregated if it had the same sex composi-
tion within occupations as the labor force as
a whole (64.35 compared to the actual 62.511;
symmetrically, the remainder of the labor
force would be less segregated if it had the
sex composition of the whole (63.69 com-
pared to the actual 66.311. Although as a
group new entrants have the same occu-
pational distribution as everyone else, new
female entrants (as well as new male en-
trants) are in different occupations than their
older counterparts.
MAJOR COMPONENTS OF CHANGE IN
TlIE OVERALL INDEX, 1972-1981
The specific detailec! occupations contrib-
uting the largest amounts to the decline in
the index of segregation between 1972 and
1981 based on the AA data are the following:
accountants; elementary school teachers;
bank officers and financial managers; sales
clerks, retail trade; secretaries, not else-
where classified (n.e.c.~; telephone opera-
tors; typists; sewers and stitchers; delivery
and route workers; janitors and sextons;
cooks, except private household; child care
workers, private household; and maids and
servants, private household.
Any difference in contribution can be due
to either a change in the size of a segregated
occupation or a change in the sex compo-
sition within an occupation. Two of the tra-
ditionally female occupations, private
household maids and servants and sewers
and stitchers, showed a large decrease in
size over the period. Each of these declines
took over 1 percentage point off of the seg-
regation index in 1981. Other traditionally
female occupations that decreased in size
are telephone operators and private house-
hold child care workers. One traditionally
male occupation, delivery and route work-
ers, also decreased in size over the period.
Although the numbers of secretaries, n.e.c.,
and elementary school teachers increased
between 1972 and 1981, the proportion of
the female labor force that crowded into these
traditionally female occupations declined
from 9.2 to 8.7 percent and from 3.6 to 2.8
percent, respectively. A smaller proportion
of the female labor force crowded into the
constant-sized female occupations of retail
sales clerk and typist in 1981 than in 1972,
4.2 percent as opposed to 5.4 percent, and
2.4 percent as opposed to 3.3 percent, re-
spectively. But the female share in these
OCR for page 18
18
ANDREA H. BELLER
occupations did not decline. Women also
entered three rapidly growing traditionally
male occupations: accountants, bank officers
and financial managers, and janitors and sex-
tons. The female share in these occupations
increased from 21.7 to 38.5 percent among
accountants, from 18.7 to 37.4 among bank
officers, and from 10.5 to 19.0 among jani-
tors. Cooks is a rapidly growing occupation
that men are entering in greater numbers
than previously; the percentage of females
in this occupation declined from 62.4 to 52.3
percent over this period.
The segregation index declined despite
the fact that some occupations contributed
more to segregation in 1981 than in 1972.
The occupations that contributed more to
the index are primarily rapidly growing fe-
male occupations. The largest increases came
from registered nurses; office managers,
n.e.c.; bank tellers; computer and periph-
eral equipment operators; and miscelIa-
neous clerical workers. Nurses and bank
tellers are both rapidly growing predomi-
nantly female occupations. The field of mis-
cellaneous clerical workers is both growing
and becoming increasingly female as are the
fields of office managers and computer and
peripheral equipment operators.
Changes in segregation during the 1970s
may be summarized as follows. While women
continued to enter some of the traditionally
female occupations in large numbers, such
as registered nurses, they decreased their
rate of entry into others, such as secretaries.
While many nontraditional occupations be-
came slightly less male dominated, large de-
clines in segregation occurred in only a few,
e.g., accountants. Also contributing to a de-
cline in segregation were the dramatic de-
clines in the size of the traditionally female
occupations of sewers and stitchers and tele-
phone operators, presumably the first clue
to a declining industry and the second! to
rapid mechanization, eliminating the need
for as many telephone operators. These
changes suggest that women are working in
many different nontraditional places in the
labor force, changes which bear a closer look.
CHANGES IN THE SEX COMPOSITION
OF OCCUPATIONS, 1960-1977
This section examines changes in the sex
composition of size-standardized occupa-
tions, assuming that all are of equal size. It
also summarizes material presented in greater
detail in Beller (1981~. Occupations are cat-
egorized according to their sex label and
broad occupational group. Changes in the
sex composition of detailed occupations dur-
ing the 1960s are contrasted with changes
between 1971 and 1977. These analyses are
bases! on data for 262 occupations from the
decennial censuses and the ADF and focus
exclusively on changes in the sex composi-
tion within occupations, a variable amenable
to alteration through public policy.
Each detailed occupation is assigned a sex
label defined by deviations in its sex com-
position of + .05 from that of the labor force
as a whole. According to this definition, oc-
cupations are categorized as male if in 1960
the percentage of males equaled or ex-
ceeded .722; in 1970, .669; in 1971, .668;
and in 1977, .640. Table 2-3 shows the num-
ber and percentage of occupations that are
male, female, and integrated in each year.8
Although a majority of occupations continue
to be male dominated, the percentage de-
clined during the 1970s, though it had in-
creased during the 1960s; a number of oc-
cupations changed from male to integrated,
while the percentage that was female re-
mained unchanged.
A comparison of changes in women's share
of employment by occupation from 1971 to
fi Although the choice of the value + .05 is somewhat
arbitrary, it has little effect on substantive conclusions
in this paper. It simply affects how wide a segment of
the occupational distribution we choose to call inte-
grated.
OCR for page 19
TRENDS IN OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION BY SEX AND RACE
19
TABLE 2-3 Sex Label of Detailed Occupations
Census
CPS
Sex Labela 1960 1970 1971 1977
Male- 159 165 157 140
Integrated 17 19 15 32
Female 86 78 90 90
Total 262 262 262 262
Percentage
Male 60.7 63.0 59.9 53.4
Integrated 6.5 7.3 5.7 12.2
Female 32.8 29.8 34.4 34.4
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
a Defined relative to the sex composition of the labor force in the year given.
SOURCE: U.S. Bureau ofthe Census, U.S.CensusofPopulation:1960.FinalReportPC(2~-7A. Subject Reports.
Occupational Characteristics. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963), Table 1; U.S. Bureau
of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1970. Final Report PC(2~-7A. Subject Reports. Occupational Charac-
tenstics. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973), Table 1; 1972 and 1978 Current Population
Survey, Annual Demographic Files, computer tapes.
1977 with those from 1960 to 1970 reveals
the following. Women's share of employ-
ment increases! absolutely in a majority of
occupations in both periods: in 77 percent
of occupations between 1960 and 1970 and
in 71 percent between 1971 and 1977. But
women's share of employment relative to
their share of the labor force increased in
many more occupations during the 1970s
than curing the 1960s: in 45 percent of oc-
cupations between 1971 and 1977 as com-
pared to 26 percent between 1960 and 1970.
Women's relative share in male occupations
also increased much more widely during the
1970s: in 46 percent of male occupations
compared to 25 percent during the 1960s.
These changes were most pronounced among
the white-colIar\ occupations, especially
professional and managerial, and little or no
change occurred among the blue-collar oc-
cupations. Women's share continued to grow
both absolutely and relatively in the already
predominantly female clerical occupations.
I have also examined the magnitude of
change in the sex composition of the average
occupation. Between 1960 and 1970 the av-
erage occupation became 2.8 percent rela-
tively more male, while between 1971 and
1977 it became 0.6 percent relatively less
male. Thus, while women had become more
occupationally concentrated during the 1960s,
they began entering nontraditional occu-
pations at a greater rate than the labor force
as a whole during the 1970s. Male occupa-
tions also became relatively more male on
average during the 1960s in every broad oc-
cupational category with the exception of
clerical. In the 1970s, with the exception of
crafts and operatives, in every broad occu-
pational category male occupations became
relatively less male. For example, the av-
erage male managerial occupation, which
became 2.5- percent more male cluring the
1960s, became 4.9 percent less male be-
tween 1971 and 1977.
In summary, the contrast in changes in the
sex composition of occupations between the
1960s and 1970s shows that a new pattern of
female entry has emerged. Rather than con-
tinue to crowd into a limited subset of occu-
pations, women are entering a wide variety
of nontraditional occupations. These changes
are most prominent at the white-collar level,
especially among professional ant] managerial
occupations. But little such change appeared
for the blue-collar occupations.
OCR for page 20
ANDREA H. BELLER
TABLE 2-4 Sex Segregation Indexes for All Occupations and Professional Occupations
by Race
All Occupations
Professional Occupations
1972 1977 1981 1972 1977 1981
Index Level
Unstandardized
White 68.39 64.96 62.08 60.05 54.68 50.75
Nonwhite 68.00 63.29 59.39 51.58 49.95 48.88
Employment Standardized to 1972
White 68.39 65.35 63.07 60.05 55.20 50.89
Nonwhite 68.00 65.43 63.52 51.58 48.58 50.59
Change in Index, 1972-1981
Unstandardized Annual Average Total Annual Average Total
White - 0.70 - 6.31 - 1.03 - 9.30
Nonwhite - 0. 96 - 8.61 - 0.30 - 2.70
Employment Standardized to 1972
White - 0.59 - 5.32 - 1.02 - 9.16
Nonwhite - 0.50 - 4.48 - 0.11 - 0.99
NOTE: These indexes are based on a common group of 262 three-digit census occupations of which 59 are
professional occupations.
SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, annual averages of monthly Current Population Survey, 1972,1977,
and 1981, unpublished tabulations.
TRENDS IN TlIE SEX SEGREGATION OF
OCCUPATIONS BY RACE, 1972-1981
Occupational segregation by sex declined
continuously for both whites and nonwhites
between 1972 and 1981. While the index of
segregation was approximately the same for
both races in 1972—68.39 for whites and
68.00 for nonwhites it declined relatively
faster for nonwhites during the 1970s. For
whites it declined to 62.08 in 1981, while
for nonwhites it declined to 59.39. These
indexes appear in Table 2-4. The figures in
the bottom part of this table show the av-
erage annual rate of decline in the index of
segregation between 1972 and 1981, 0.96
for nonwhites compared to 0.70 for whites.9
To identify the portion of the overall change
attributable to changes in the sex compo-
9 Although in this sample many occupations contain
only a few nonwhites, the level of the segregation in-
dexes changes very little when occupations with fewer
than 10 nonwhites are excluded from the computations.
sition within occupations, the indexes were
standardized to the occupational distribu-
tion of employment in the initial year, 1972.
By contrast to the unstandardized indexes,
the standardize`] indexes, shown in Table
2-1, declined slightly more for whites than
for nonwhites, from 68.39 to 63.07 for whites
and from 68.00 to 63.52 for nonwhites. Incus,
the greater decline for nonwhites than whites
in the unstandardized index can be attrib-
uted to shifts in the nonwhite occupational
distribution from heavily single-sex occu-
pations toward less segregated ones. As a
matter of fact, nearly one-half of the decline
in sex segregation among nonwhites was due
to such changes in their occupational dis-
tribution ~ - 4.13) toward less segregated oc-
cupations as compared with changes in their
sex composition within size-standardized
occupations (-4.481. I conclude that changes
in the sex composition within occupations
was about the same for both races over the
clecade, but the occupational distribution of
nonwhites also shifted toward less sex seg-
regation.
OCR for page 21
TRENDS IN OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION BY SEX AND RACE
21
The picture for professional occupations
contrasts dramatically. On the one hand,
while the levels of the segregation indexes
are Tower for both races for professional than
for all occupations in 1972, these indexes
are much lower for nonwhites. As shown in
the second pane} of Table 2-4, the 1972 seg-
regation index was 60.05 for white profes-
sionals and 51.58 for nonwhite professionals
in contrast to 68.39 and 68.00, respectively,
for all occupations. On the other hand, non-
whites experienced little decline in sex seg-
regation among professional occupations
during the 1970s, while whites experienced
larger declines than among all occupations.
By the end of the decade, white profession-
als had become slightly less sex segregated
than nonwhite professionals had been at the
beginning of the decade—an index value of
50.75 compared to 51.58 - while nonwhites
had become somewhat less segregated—an
index value of 48.88. The annual average
rate of decline in the segregation indexes for
professional occupations over the decade was
1.03 for whites and 0.30 for nonwhites, in
contrast to 0.70 and 0.96, respectively, for
all occupations. According to the employ-
ment standardized indexes, this entire de-
cline for whites resulted from changes in
their sex composition within occupations
(1.02), while for nonwhites most of this de-
cline came from shifts in their occupational
distribution toward less (nonwhite) sex-seg-
regated professional occupations (0.111.
The question naturally arises as to what
proportion of each racial group constitutes
the professional occupations. In 1972, 14
percent of white men and 15 percent of white
women were in professional occupations,
while only 8 percent of nonwhite men and
11 percent of nonwhite women were. by
1981 the proportions had risen for all groups,
with the largest increase occurring for non-
white women to 15 percent, the next largest
increase for nonwhite men to 11 percent,
and identical increases for whites of both
sexes to 16 percent for men and 17 percent
for women. These percentages reflect growth
rates of professional employment of 90 per-
cent for nonwhite women, 69 percent for
nonwhite men, 54 percent for white women,
and 26 percent for white men. Neverthe-
less, professional occupations still com-
prised a smaller proportion of nonwhite than
white employment in 1981.
If sex segregation declined as much for
nonwhites as for whites over all occupations
but not among professional occupations, then
most change among nonwhites must have
occurred at other levels of the occupational
distribution.
MAJOR COMPONENTS OF CHANGE IN
THE OVERALL INDEX BY RACE
The occupations contributing the most to
decreasing the segregation index among
nonwhites between 1972 and 1981 differ
considerably from the ones for whites, al-
though some similarities exist. The occu-
pations that contributed the most to de-
clines in the index of sex segregation among
nonwhites only are primarily laborer and
service worker occupations. Frequently, they
are typically male occupations that declined
in size over this period and in which non-
whites are represented disproportionately.
The larger decline for nonwhites than for
whites in the index of segregation over all
occupations can be traced to this source.
The specific detailed occupations tatting over
one-half a percentage point off the segre-
gation index for nonwhites only between 1972
and 1981 are the following: storekeepers and
stock clerks; clothing ironers and pressers;
construction laborers, except carpenters'
helpers; freight and material handlers; gar-
deners and groundskeepers, except farm;
miscellaneous laborers; unspecified labor-
ers; farm laborers, wage workers; chamber-
maids and maids, except private household;
cleaners and charwomen; nursing aids, or-
derlies, and attendants; and practical nurses.
Among these, nearly all laborer occupations
declined in size, while nearly all service
worker occupations increased in size. Non-
OCR for page 22
22
ANDREA H. BELLER
white women increased their share of store-
keeper jobs from 20 to 41 percent between
1972 and 1981.
Ike segregation index declined for both
races because of the dramatic decline in the
size of the private household maids and
servants occupation, but the decline was
much greater for nonwhites. The decline in
the number of nonwhite females in this oc-
cupation took an exceptional 8.04 percent-
age points off the segregation index for non-
whites.
Ike specific detailed occupations contrib-
uting the largest amounts to the decline in
the index of segregation among whites be-
tween 1972 and 1981 are mostly the same
as for the whole population presented ear-
lier. Nevertheless, some occupations con-
tributed to the decline in the index for whites
only: bookkeepers, garage workers and gas
station attendants, waiters and waitresses,
and hairdressers and cosmetologists. Al-
though the number of whites employed as
bookkeepers increased between 1972 and
1981, the proportion of the white female
labor force that crowded into this tradition-
ally female occupation declined from 5.2 to
4.6 percent. While men entered the two
expanding traditionally female occupa-
tions waiters and waitresses, and hair-
dressers and cosmetologists at an increas-
ing rate over this period, the male share of
white employment increased from 7.2 per-
cent to 9.2 percent in the former and from
9.2 to 11.1 percent in the latter. The tra-
ditionally male occupation of garage workers
and gas station attendants showed a decline
in size over the period.
Comparable declines in segregation for
whites and nonwhites occurred for the fol-
lowing occupations: the clerical occupation,
telephone operators; the operative occupa-
tion, sewers and stitchers; the laborer oc-
cupation, delivery and route workers; ant!
the three service worker occupations, jani-
tors and sextons, cooks (except private
household), and child care workers (private
household). By contrast, sex segregation
among whites also declined among the fol-
lowing white-collar occupations: account-
ants; elementary school teachers; bank of-
ficers and financial managers; sales clerks,
retail trade; bookkeepers; secretaries, n.e.c.;
and typists. Two of these occupations-
bookkeepers and secretaries, n.e.c. ac-
tually became more segregated among non-
whites because women but not men entered
these fields.
The occupations that contributed more in
1981 than in 1972 to the segregation index
for whites are identical to those for the pop-
ulation as a whole reported earlier. Occu-
pations that became more segregated among
nonwhites only include bookkeepers; sec-
retaries, n. e. c.; investigators and esti-
mators, n.e.c.; statistical clerks; electricians;
and assemblers. These were all sex-segre-
gated occupations in which the numbers of
nonwhites employed grew. The typically fe-
male occupations among them also became
increasingly female. While the number of
electricians grew rapidly, the female share
of nonwhite employment increased from O
in 1972 to 3.9 percent in 1981. Contributing
toward increasing the segregation index by
comparable amounts for both races are reg-
istered nurses, bank tellers, computer and
peripheral equipment operators, and mis-
celIaneous clerical workers.
In summary, much of the decline in oc-
cupational segregation by sex during the
1970s occurred for both races; however, ma-
jor differences exist. The major exodus of
nonwhite females from the occupation of
private household maids and servants and
the decline in size of a number of laborer
occupations in which nonwhite males dom-
inated shifted the nonwhite occupational
distribution toward a greater reduction in
occupational sex segregation during the 1970s
than for whites. On the other hand, white
women reduced their rate of entry into a
number of traditionally female white-collar
occupations that nonwhite women contin-
ued to enter, and white women increased
their entry into a number of traditionally
OCR for page 23
TRENDS IN OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION BY SEX AND RACE
23
male white-colIar occupations more than
nonwhite women did.
CONCLUSION
Occupational segregation of the sexes di-
minished significantly during the 1970s, as
measured by the index of segregation. Most
of the decline was due to changes in the sex
composition of traditionally male occupa-
tions, particularly at the professional and
managerial levels. Declines in segregation
among new and recent job market entrants
were greater than for the rest of the labor
force. While nonwhites experienced a greater
decline in occupational sex segregation than
whites over the decade, about the same
amount was due to changes in the sex com-
position of traditionally male occupations.
The marked declines in sex segregation in
professional occupations apparent among
whites dice not hold for nonwhites, but non-
white professionals were much less segre-
gated than white professionals at the start
of the decade. Continued declines in oc-
cupational segregation by sex depend on the
apparent momentum for change continuing
into the next decade.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported in part by
funds from the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, Research Board. Help-
ful comments on an earlier drab were pro-
vided by Marianne Ferber, Victor Fuchs,
Barbara Reskin, and several reviewers. Ex-
cellent research assistance was provided by
Kee-ok Kim Han. Computational assistance
by John Boyd and Alex Kwok is gratefully
acknowledged.
APPENDIX A
Data Sources
To assess trends in occupational segre-
gation for intercensual years, a data set other
than the decennial census must be selected.
The monthly Current Population Survey
(CPS) collects detailed three-digit census
occupation data from a random cluster sam-
ple of (initially around 50,000) around 60,000
households (1/1500) designed to represent
the civilian noninstitutional population of the
United States. Two sources provide detailed
occupational data from this survey. The first
is the Bureau of the Census's March Annual
Demographic Files (ADF), available on
public-use tapes since 1968. The question
on "longest job held last year" should pro-
vide reasonably reliable estimates of the
previous year's occupational distribution. The
second is the monthly statistics compiled by
the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS) from which the latter com-
pute, ant! since 1974 publish in Employment
and Earnings, the annual averages (AA). AA
data were used in the two studies referred
to in the text (Lloyd and Niemi and U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights), which com-
putec] segregation indexes for more recent
data than the 1970 census. Unpublished tab-
ulations of AA, which include data for smaller
occupations than the published data (50,000
incumbents), are available directly from the
BLS for 1972 on.
In comparing the CPS with the decennial
census, the primary disadvantage of the CPS
is its smaller sample size. The AA data are
somewhat more reliable on these grounds
than the ADF data. For total labor force data
other than agricultural employment and un-
employment, the sampling error of the an-
nual averages is 0.67 times the sampling er-
ror of the monthly data (Employment and
Earnings, May 1982, Table I). To improve
reliability, the smallest occupations should
be excluded. For purposes of this paper, all
tabulations excluded occupations with fewer
than 25 survey respondents in either the
1975 or the 1978 ADF data set (representing
occupations with fewer than approximately
40,000 incumbents). Out of the 441 detailed
three-digit 1970 census occupations, this left
267 in 1974 and 280 in 1977, 262 of which
OCR for page 24
24
ANDREA H. BELLER
are common to both years. All tabulations
in this paper include only those 262 occu-
pations, or fewer where noted.
Comparability of Data
In attempting to assess trends in occu-
pational data over time, two comparability
problems arise, depending on the period of
interest. The first is changes in the Census
Bureau's occupation codes with each decen-
nial census. A variety of techniques for deal-
ing with this problem are discussed in Eng-
land (1981~. The 1960 census data were
recoded according to the 1970 census cocles
by John A. Priebe (U. S. Bureau of the Cen-
sus,1972~. These data are published in U. S.
Bureau of the Census (1973, Table 221~; the
1960 and 1970 census data in this paper, as
well as in Blau and Hendricks (1979), come
from this source. The 1980 census used a
substantially revised set of occupation codes,
and thus its occupation data will not be com-
parable to earlier census occupation data un-
less the Census Bureau double codes them
with the 1970 and 1980 occupation codes.
Another comparability problem arose in
that the segregation indexes computed us-
ing the CPS data were inconsistent with the
one computed using the 1970 census data
despite the fact that both used 1970 census
codes. In an attempt to find out why, the
following information was discovered. In
APPENDED B
TABLE B-1 Indexes of Segregation From Other Studies
December 1971 a question eliciting infor-
mation on major activities or duties was added
to the monthly CPS in order to determine
more precisely the occupational cIassifica-
tion of individuals. According to the BLS
(`Employment and Earnings, January 1979,
p.207), "this change resulted in several dra-
matic occupational shifts, particularly from
managers and administrators to other groups.
Thus, meaningful comparisons of occupa-
tional levels cannot always be made for 1972
and subsequent years with earlier periods."
For this reason, the 1970 census data are
not comparable with the CPS data after 1971.
The two studies that found no change in
segregation in the 1970s relied on such a
comparison. The earliest comparable data
would be from the 1972 ADF on the longest
job held last year, 1971. For these reasons,
presented here are census data for 1960 and
1970 comparisons; data from the ADF for
1971-1974 and 1977, the years for which we
have the data tapes; and the unpublishe~l
annual averages data for 1972, 1977, and
1981 for more recent data. It was found that
the computations based on the ADF and the
AA data sets are quite similar, although in-
dividual occupations can differ. To include
data as current as 1981, comparisons across
these two data sources were sometimes made,
although their reliability diners. Additional
comparability problems will arise when the
CPS converts to the new 1980 occupation
codes, beginning with the 1982 clata.
Census
1960 1970
CPSa
Projected
1976 1977 1985
All Occupations
Blau and Hendricks (1979) (N = 280)
Lloyd and Niemi (1979) (N = 236)
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1978) (N = 441)
Professional Occupations
Fuchs (1975) (N = 33)
Unstandardized
Standardized to 1960
a Computed from the BLS's AA data.
68.33
66.2
66.2
65.77 60.10
64.5
65.8
64.3
66.1
59.2
62.7
OCR for page 25
TRENDS IN OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION BY SEX AND RACE 25
TABLE B-2 Percentage of Occupations With Changes in Sex Label by Initial Sex Label
and Period
1960-1970 1971-1977 1971-1974 1974-1977
All 9.5 11.1 11.5 11.1
Male 3.1 10.8 8.9 7.5
Integrated 53.0 33~3 53~3 37~5
Female 12.8 7.8 8.9 9.9
SOURCE: Same as for Table 2-3.
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26
ANDREA H. BELLER
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
sex composition
