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OCR for page 308
17 commentary
WENDY C. WOLF
The paper by Waite and Berryman deals
with the Comprehensive Employment and
Training Act (CETA) system and its record
in providing access to nontraditional jobs.
CETA represented a potential area of fed-
eral intervention but also a potential force
that may have perpetuated sex-segregated
job choice. It also represented a system in
which there had been considerable effort
during the last decade to improve services
to women and, in fact, to improve nontra-
ditional options for women. When inspect-
ing this system, one could look at the rec-
ord that is, have the kinds of services
improved (i.e., offering nontraditional op-
tions)? What is the impact of this system
itself on women and men?
Before commenting on this paper, it is
critical to consider a little history. In 1978
there were considerable changes in the CETA
legislation to make it more responsive to the
needs of women, both in terms of serving
them in numbers relative to their propor-
tion in the eligible population and in trying
to increase their nontraditional options. Un-
fortunately, the data used by Berryman and
Waite came from the pre-1978 period. So
they are looking at the CETA system prior
308
to the time that this "new" legislation took
effect. The relevant question to be answered
is, therefore, how was CETA doing before
this additional emphasis was put on services
to women.
Another critical point to consider is that
Berryman and Waite often mention public
service employment (PSE). PSE has been
out of vogue for a while. For this reason,
the focus of my comments is on classroom
training, on-thejob "raining, end adult work
experience.
Even prior to the 1978 amendments, which
were designed to encourage the expansion
of nontraditional opportunities for women,
there were slightly increasing proportions
of women moving into nontraditional jobs
within CETA and into nontraditional train-
ing, despite the fact that, within CETA, the
overall proportion of women being exposed
to nontraditional options was not high. But
the CETA system was not keeping pace with
women's changing aspirations. An inspec-
tion of the aspirations of women for nontra-
ditional work reveals they were rising at a
faster rate than was the opening up of non-
traditional career options within CETA. It
is interesting to note that the aspirations
OCR for page 309
COMMENTARY _
309
among women tor nontraditional work were
growing (which I think is very divergent from
the evidence Marini and Brinton present in
Chapter 11 about high school girls) but that
the whole system wasn't changing fast enough
to accommodate these changes.
Berryman and Waite show the relation-
ship between aspiration and the type of
service received. Of the women who had
traditionally female aspirations, 77 percent
were placed in female-typed jobs; of those
with male aspirations, 41.5 percent were
placed in male-typed jobs, and 40 percent
into female-typed jobs; of those with "mixed"
aspirations, 46.8 percent were placed in
mixed occupations, and 43 percent into fe-
male-typed occupations. This suggests that
if one enters the CETA system with non-
traditional aspirations, one is likely to get
funneled into female-typed jobs anyway.
The Berryman and Waite paper makes a
big deal about wages I am less likely to
be so exciter] about this issue. The National
Research Council's Committee on Evalua-
tion of Employment and Training Programs
once produced a table showing male-female
differences in wages in CETA. It showed
that women earned 90 percent of what men
earned in CETA. This is a bit misleading,
however, in part due to the fact that within
CETA there was a floor and a ceiling on
wages, thus little variation.
I have one minor caution about Berryman
and Waite's analysis. They talk about as-
signment either to on-thejob training or
classroom training and how that increases
or decreases one's likelihood of being in or
getting into a sex-typed job. One has to be
careful about assuming directionality be-
tween the two. The fact is that clerical train-
ing occurs in the classroom. So if a CETA
participant is going into clerical training, he
or she is assigned to classroom training. So
I don't really think that you can treat one
as exogenous and one as endogenous. They
are jointly determined.
This paper shows some potential for change
in the CETA system, especially since it was
done in the preamendment days. It also
shows that the CETA system has helpec]
perpetuate the status quo in terms of oc-
cupational segregation.
It is important to realize that Berryman
and Waite describe CETA before the 1978
amendments. From 1978 to 1983, specific
language was added to the law to encourage
sex equity and the movement of women into
nontraditional jobs. It should be noted that
in the new lob Training Partnership Act,
very little proscriptive language is includes!
to help legislate fair ant] equitable treatment
for women.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
nontraditional jobs
