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OCR for page 37
-
Explaining Sex Segregation
In the Workplace
In the committee's judgment, the causes
of job segregation are multiple, interlocking,
and deep-seated yet, as we show in Chap-
ter 4, they are also amenable to policy in-
tervention. In this chapter we discuss the
factors we fee} to be the most important in
accounting for the extreme degree of sex
segregation of work observed in the United
States. Intertwined with the social processes
that contribute to job segregation are widely
shared cultural assumptions about the sexes
and their appropriate activities. For exam-
ple, the belief of many people, including
many women, that women should place the
care oftheir families first in theirlives affects
the way women are treated on the job when
Hey do work. And such beliefs also interact
with reality: many women today do indeed
bear the greater share ofthe day-to-day work
involved in family care. Similarly, it is often
assumed that physical differences between
the sexes make them suited or unsuited for
certain types of work, anti there are average
sex differences in size and stature that may
be significant in some occupations.
In this chapter we first examine the cul-
tural 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 judi-
cial decisions that permitted or demancled
that employers treat the sexes differently,
and how they continue to provide ration-
alizations for both intentional and uninten-
tional labor market discrimination against
women (and, less frequently, men). Third,
we investigate the roles that women's own
choices and preferences play in their work
careers and examine the effects of sociali-
zation and training. Assumptions about what
kinds of work are appropriate for each gen-
der, communicated through various social-
ization and training processes, contribute to
the development of sex-typed occupational
preferences in individuals. Evidence sug-
gests, however, that such sex-typed pref-
erences are neither fixed for life nor fully
deterministic of the sex type of workers' jobs.
Fourth, we examine the role that family re-
sponsibilities, actual or anticipated, play in
shaping both women's choices and their op-
portunities. Finally, we examine the thesis
that the occupational opportunity structure
plays a major role in perpetuating the con-
centration of the sexes in different jobs. By
the occupational opportunity structure we
OCR for page 38
38
WOMEN'S WORK, MEN'S WORK
mean the distribution of occupations that are
available to members of each sex (and often
certain racial and ethnic groups within each
sex), a distribution that is seen to be limited
by institutionalized and informal barriers Mat
restrict workers' opportunities.
Regarding the relative importance of these
various factors, it is our judgment that wom-
en's free occupational choices made in an
open market explain only very incompletely
their concentration in a small number of fe-
male-dominated occupations. While work-
ers' 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 em-
ployers' and coworkers' preferences, and on
institutionalized personnel procedures. In
this chapter we look at the evidence in more
detail.
CULTURAL BELIEFS ABOUT GENDER
AND WORK
Beliefs about differences between the
sexes, many of them taken as axiomatic, play
an important role in the organization of so-
cial life. These assumptions are often so much
a part of our world view that we do not
consciously think about them. As one an-
thropologist put it, they are "referentially
transparent" to us (Hutchins, 1980~. It is
their transparency that gives them their force:
because they are invisible, the underlying
assumptions go unquestioned, and the be-
liefs they entail seem natural to us. Even
when we do question and revise certain of
these beliefs for instance, when we realize
that they are prejudicial to women the im-
plicit assumptions that engendered them re-
main intact and can serve as the foundation
for future, perhaps somewhat altered, sex
stereotypes. The cultural axioms that have
been used to exclude women from the work-
place, to restrict them to certain occupa-
tions, or to condition their wage labor fall
into three broad categories: those related to
women s role in the home, those related to
male-female relationships, and those related
to innate differences between the sexes.
Women's Role in the Home
The first category consists of those as-
sumptions that hold that women's "natural"
place is in the home. This group of assump-
tions underlies many specific attitudes about
women and work held by employers, male
workers, lawmakers, parents, husbands, and
women themselves. It seeks to legitimate
women's exclusion from the public sphere
and hence the workplace and implies that a
woman who is committed to her job is un-
womanly. This axiom is neither universal
nor timeless. It is an expression of cultural
beliefs elaborated especially over the last
two centuries and perhaps most filthy de-
veloped and widely disseminated, through
the popular media, in the contemporary
United States. The assumption that wom-
en's place is in the home follows from the
premise that men support women, so women
do not need to do wage work to earn a living.
By implication, if women are employer!, it
must be for extras or diversion from do-
mestic life, so their concentration in low-
paying, dead-end jobs is of little importance.
The corollary to this set of assumptions, that
men do not belong in the home during work-
ing hours, also accounts for the almost totally
segregated occupation of housewife and may
help to explain the resilience of the tradi-
tional sexual division of domestic work among
couples in which both partners are em-
ployed fills time.
Historically as well as today, the notion
that women's place is in the home has not
reflected the actual behavior of large sectors
of the population; hence it has been in fi~n-
damental conflict with the reality of many
women's lives. Women have worked to sup
~ This section on cultural beliefs relies heavily on
di Leonexdo (1982).
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EXPLAINING SEX SEGREGATION IN THE WORKPLACE
port themselves and their families; they have
worked because their labor was needed.
Women have replaced men gone to war.
They have done heavy labor on family farms
when necessary. They have sought wage
work when there was no means of support
for them on the farm. They have taken in
boarders and devised other ways to earn
money at home. Women who are urban and
minority, recent immigrants, and poor in
genera] have done menial work for low wages,
without the primacy of women's domestic
role being invoked. And highly educated
women, earning better salaries, have also
worked as nurses, teachers, social workers,
office workers, and businesswomen since late
in the last century. 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 cir-
cumstances and ways in which reality has
been reconciled to the belief system (di Leo-
nardo, 19821. For example, those who insist
that women should not work claim the in-
oompatibility of paid employment with
women's domestic roles, in that paid work
interferes with proper child care. Those who
wish to justify women's employment outside
the home, by contrast, try to show that it is
compatible with, even complements, their
home roles. Ike latter justification permits
or even promotes jobs for women that min-
imize interference with child care through
flexible scheduling (e.g., school teaching or
part-time work), low demands on incum-
bents (e.g., retail sales), or work that can be
done at home (e.g., data processing, typing,
sewing). Certain occupations (e.g., teaching
home economics) that are believed to en-
hance women's ability to carry out domestic
duties later in their lives may be considered
more acceptable than others. Other occu-
pations (e.g., nursing, social work) have been
acceptable because they have been defined
39
as an extension of women's domestic roles,
a rationale that has been used to justify pay-
ing workers in these jobs low wages (Kessler-
Harris, 19821.
Thus, despite the strong contradiction be-
tween the notion of women's place and real-
ity, the former continues to provide the
foundation for beliefs about the conditions
under which women should and should not
do wage work. Most important for the pres-
ent endeavor are beliefs as to which occu-
pations are appropriate for them.
Male-Female Relationships
A second category of beliefs includes those
about gender differences that are relevant
in male-female relationships. For example,
an ancient and pervasive belief in Western
thought is that women lack reason and are
governed by emotion (N. Davis, 197S; Jor-
danova, 19801. This line of thought offers a
logical basis for assuming "natural" male
dominance and underlies social values that
men should not be subordinate to women.
Whenever the two sexes interact outside the
family, women are viewed as subordinate,
and when they enter the workplace, they
are expected to fill subordinate occupational
roles. Caplow (1954) elaborates this point,
arguing that attitudes governing interper-
sonal relationships in our culture sanction
only a few working relationships between
men and women and prohibit all others. He
contends that according to these values, "in-
timate groups, except those based on family
or sexual ties, should be composed of either
sex but not both" (p. 2381. Intimate work
groups in which men and women have un-
equal roles are sometimes allowed. I1ese
norms of sexual segregation and male dom-
inance have frequently guided employers'
hiring decisions. Women are rarely hired in
positions of authority (Wolf and Fligstein,
1979a, 1979b). Some employers explain that
they defer to workers' preferences. Male
managers surveyed one and two decades ago
indicated that they felt both women and men
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40
WOAlEN'S WORK MEN'S WORK
would be uncomfortable working under a
woman supervisor (Grinder, 1961; Bass et
al., 19711. They also thought that women in
supervisory roles have difficulty dealing with
men in subordinate positions.
In several recent studies, it is clear that
attitudes about female supervisors have
changed. Two-thirds of the respondents in
a 1980 Roper survey said it made no differ-
ence to them whether they worked for a man
or a woman, and only 28 percent preferred
a male supervisor (Barron and Yankelovich,
1980:Table 5~. A survey of 1,402 university
employees revealed a preference for male
bosses and professionals providing personal
services (accountants, dentists, lawyers,
physicians, realtors, and veterinarians), but
it was weaker among women, the more ecI-
ucated, and those who had had positive ex-
periences with female bosses or professionals
(Ferber et al., 1979~. A study of women in
several traditionally male jobs in public util-
ities found that most subordinates of both
sexes held positive attitudes toward women
managers (U. S. Department of Labor, Em-
ployment and Training Administration,
1978~. Of particular interest is the admission
by several men that they had been initially
concerned but that their apprehensions dis-
appeare(1 when they found that their su-
pervisors performed effectively. More
generally, this study revealed that attitudes
changed quite rapidly with experience with
female bosses, even when those bosses held
jobs that traditional values label "very mas-
culine" (p. 10~. The effects of education and
experience suggest that we may expect con-
tinue(1 change in employee attitudes toward
women supervisors. For women's occupa-
tional opportunities to increase, however,
the behavior of those making employment
decisions must also change.
Sexual relations, as well as power rela-
tions, are also relevant in the workplace, and
fears of sexual relations particularly may con-
tribute to occupational segregation. The folk
theory that women unwittingly tempt men
and that men, vulnerable to their provoca-
tion, may be prompted to seduction has been
used to justify excluding women from cer-
tain occupations or work settings that are
thought to heighten men's vulnerability to
female sexuality. Examples include ship-
board duty or jobs that involve travel with
coworkers. Women have been denied cer-
tain jobs because their presence may suggest
the appearance of impropriety. MacKinnon
(1979) cites the example of the South Car-
olina Senate, which refused to hire women
as pages in order to foster public confidence
in Me Senate by protecting its members from
appearing in a possibly damaging way. Not
only men but women themselves may be
depicted as the victims of their unwitting
sexual provocation. Reformers around the
turn of the century argued that permitting
the sexes to work side by side would lead
women to stray, either because their pres-
ence tempts men or because corrupt men
will exploit innocent and vulnerable women
who have left the protection of their homes.
This concern resects the belief in women's
sexuality as an autonomous force over which
neither they nor the men with whom they
work have control. And it also reveals, once
again, the assumption that women's primary
place is in the home: for the consequence
of women's employment alongside men
feared by reformers was that these women,
once having strayed sexually, would be for-
ever disqualified from their domestic roles
as wife and mother. Kessler-Harris quotes
Robert McClelIand, Secretary of the Inte-
rior, in the middle ofthe last century: 'here
is such an obvious impropriety in the mixing
of the sexes within the walls of a public once
that I am determined to arrest the practice"
(1982:100-1011. Such reasoning ultimately
led several states to pass laws making it il-
legal for women to hold a variety of occu-
pations, including bartender, messenger,
meter reader, and elevator operator, but it
did not prevent women from entering offices
in large numbers a Smith, 1974; Kessler-
Harris, 19821.
More recently, the stereotype of woman
as sexual temptress has been invoked to ac-
count for women's sexual harassment: sim
OCR for page 41
EXPLAINING SEX SEGREGATION IN THE WORKPLACE
ply by entering the workplace, women
subject men to their sexuality and invite ha-
rassment. Sexual harassment is pervasive in
male-dominated occupations that women
have recently entered (Enarson, 1980; Mar-
tin, 1980; Walshok, 1981a; Westley, 19821.
Gruber and Bjorn (1982) suggest that men
may use it to gain the upper hand in situ-
ations in which men and women have similar
jobs and earn equal wages, especially in un-
skilled jobs in which male coworkers cannot
punish entering women by denying them
work-related information. The important
point here is that the unquestioned as-
sumptions about the sexuality of both men
and women underlie the limiting of women's
occupational choices.
Innate Differences Between the Sexes
A third category of beliefs that shape
women's occupational outcomes are those
that assume innate differences between the
sexes. We have already seen that women
are regarded as innately less rational and
more emotional, a view that has been used
to justify excluding them from positions of
authority. In addition, women have var-
iously been thought to lack aggressiveness,
strength, endurance, and a capacity for ab-
stract thought and to possess greater dex-
terity, tolerance for tedium, and natural
morality than men. A body of research re-
viewed in Lueptow (1980) indicates that the
public continues to hold many of these ster-
eotypes about female and male "personaTi-
ties." Some of these differences further justify
women s greater responsibility for family
care. For example, women's supposed nat-
ural 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 occu-
pationaDy relevant traits. Women's dexter-
ity is offered to explain their employment
as clericals and sometimes as operatives; their
supposed passivity and compliance have been
~.
41
seen as uniquely fitting them for clerical work
(Grinder, 1961; Davies, 1975; Kessler-Har-
ris, 1982) as well as other jobs involving bor-
ing, repetitive tasks. One employer's
explanation, offered in the 1960s, for pre-
ferring women illustrates both points: "We
fee} that jobs requiring manual dexterity call
for women. Also this work is particularly
tedious and painstaking~efinitely a wom-
en's job" (G. Smith, 1964:241. Construction
firms cite women's alleged weakness and in-
tolerance of harsh working conditions as rea-
sons for denying them jobs (U. S. Department
of Labor, Employment Standards Admin-
istration, 1981; WestIey, 1982~. The social
expectations that women should uphold
moral standards and care about the needy,
perhaps because of their innate nurturance,
limit their occupational opportunities. As
Epstein (1981) notecl, women have been en-
couraged to perform good works in service-
oriented occupations such as social work an
nursing, which, coincidentally, have often
had poor career potential. And women have
been believed to be "too good" for politics.
They are also thought to be too sentimental
and timid to enforce the law or serve in
combat (Epstein, 1981~. Women's alleged
emotionality may clisqualify them in many
employers' minds for higher-level positions,
especially those in law, medicine, or science
that require rationality and tough-minded-
ness (for a brief review, see Miller and Gar-
rison, 1982~.
Sex Stereotypes and Occupational
Segregation
Many of these beliefs about women's in-
nate traits and their natural social roles per-
sist, despite women's increasing participation
in a large number of formerly male occu-
pations, even among students training for
professions (Quaclagno, 1976; Beattie and
DiehT, 19791. A single woman worker who
violates the stereotype can be explained as
exceptionally when the behavior of many
women clearly belies a particular stereo-
type, a different one may emerge to main
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42
WOMEN'S WORK, MEN'S WORK
fain the gender homogeneity with which
members of an occupation have become
comfortable. For example, women lawyers
were dismissed in the 1960s as "too soft" for
the courtroom. When they showed them-
seIves to be competent in court, they were
restereotyped by male lawyers as tough and
unfeminine- and hence implicitly unsuited
to their proper role as wife and mother (Ep-
stein, 1981~.
Stereotypes about appropriate and inap-
propriate occupations for women and men
encourage sex-typical occupational choices
by affecting workers' aspirations, self-image,
identity, and commitment. The stereotyped
views that masculine men would not pursue
certain occupations, nor feminine women
others, for instance, is deterrent enough for
most people. Their misgivings are realistic:
the femininity or masculinity of individuals
who are not so deterred is questioned
(Bourne and Wilder, 1978), and they may
experience ~lisapproval, especially from
males (Nilson, 1976; Jacobs and PoweD,
1983~. The prospects of sexual harassment
or of being prejudgecl as incompetent at one's
work may also discourage those who might
otherwise opt for sex-atypical occupations.
Another way that assumed sex cli$erences
affect the jobs women and men fill is that
employers' beliefs that members of one sex
do not want to do certain kinds of work in-
Huence their personnel decisions. For ex-
ample, individuals who made inning decisions
for entry-level semiskilled jobs in several
firms in one city commented to the re-
searcher, "Women wouldn't like this," and
"Men wouldn't like to see women (cowork-
ers) this way." Another employer who hired
primarily women said, "The work is clean
and women like that" (Harkess, 1980~.
Statistical Discrimination
Economists (Arrow, 1972; Phelps, 1972)
have termed one form of employers' re-
{uctar~ce to hire certain persons "statistical
discrimination," a concept that refers to de
cision making about an individual on the
basis of characteristics believecl to be typical
of the group to which he or she belongs.
The wide acceptance of assumptions of sex
differences in characteristics related to pro-
ductivity provides the basis for statistical dis-
crimination by employers (e.g., Bass et al.,
19711. According to this model, employers
do not hire anyone who is a member of a
group thought to have lower productivity;
statistical discrimination serves for them as
a cheap screening device. Statistical dis-
crimination often rests on unquestioned as-
sumptions about women's domestic roles.
For example, employers may refuse to hire
a woman in the childbearing years for certain
jobs especially those that require on-the-
job 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 in-
tentions. In a study of book publishing, Ca-
plette (1981) discovered that women were
automatically excluded from the primary
route to upward mobility, the college trav-
eler job, on the assumption that extensive
traveling would conflict with their domestic
responsibilities. According to this explana-
tion of discrimination, employers practice
statistical discrimination against women
solely on economic grounds and presumably
would ignore gender if they came to rec-
ognize that their cheap screening device was
too costly in terms of misapplied human re-
sources. Employers might, for example, be-
come convince{] that young men were equally
likely to quit their jobs or take time off to
share childbearing responsibilities or that
many qualified women will not quit because
of family responsibilities.
Statistical discrimination contributes to sex
segregation in two ways. First, employers,
beliefs that the sexes differ on work-related
traits may bias them to favor one or the other
sex for particular occupations. Second, if they
expect that women are more likely than men
to drop out of the labor force, they will hire
women only for jobs that require little or no
OCR for page 43
EXPLAINING SEX SEGREGATION IN THE WORKPLACE
on-thejob training (e.g., retail sales) or in-
volve skills whose training costs workers
themselves assume (e.g., typing, hairdress-
ing). Using data for 290 California establish-
ments, Bielby and Baron (1986) examined
whether employers seemed to reserve some
jobs for men and others for women in a man-
ner consistent with their perceptions of sex
differences in sobs, turnover, costs, and work
orientations. They found that employers as-
signec! jobs involving nonrepetitive tasks,
spatial skids, eye-hancI-foot coordination, and
physical strength to men and those requiring
finger dexterity to women. The concept of
statistical discrimination also encompasses
employers' favoring members of a group
whose performance they believe they can
predict more reliably. Even if the sexes were
equally productive and performed equally
weD on some valid employment test, if the
test predicted women's performance less re-
liably, employers would make fewer errors
by hiring men (signer and Cain, 1977; Os-
terman, 19781. For this type of statistical
discrimination to help explain sex segrega-
tion, employers must believe that women's
performance is less reliably predicted than
that of men, and so exclude them from some
occupations. 2
Sex Labeling and Sex Typing
In an influential 1968 study, Oppenhei-
mer argued that the individual decisions of
workers and employers are reinforced by a
historical process through which most oc-
cupations have come to be labeled as wom-
en's work or men's work, and hence reserved
for members of the appropriate sex. Op
2 One study offers evidence that this is the case.
Although Osterman (1979) rejected less reliable pre-
dictions of women's absenteeism as a basis for wage
differentials, Kahn (1981) showed that he used the wrong
indicator of predictability. Using the appropriate one,
Kahn found that female absenteeism was predicted less
reliably, a finding that could support statistical discnm-
ination in wages.
43
penheimer contended that sex labeling re-
flected employers' beliefs that certain
occupations required attributes that were
characteristic of one sex or the other or, for
women, represented an extension of do-
mestic nonwage work. To job seekers, oc-
cupations take on the characteristics of
current incumbents; custom then tends to
make the sex labels stick.
The related concept of sex typing implies
both that an occupation employs a dispro-
portionate number of workers of one sex and
the normative expectation that this is as it
should be (Merton, in Epstein, 1970a:1521.
Manifest in language and the mass media,
sex labels and the associated norms are
learned through childhood and adult so-
cialization by current and future workers and
employers. An obvious example of sex typ-
ing in the mass media is classified adver-
tisements stipulating a particular sex or
segregated by sex, now not permissible un-
der Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Some sex-specific occupational titles (e.g.,
"lineman,""stewardess") are still common,
although most were eliminated in the new-
est revision of the Dictionary of Occupa-
tional Titles (`U.S. Department of Labor,
1977) and other government publications.
Job descriptions often use sex-specific pro-
nouns. Television, movies, magazines, and
bilIboarcIs consistently depict occupational
incumbents in stereotyped ways (Marini and
Brinton, 19841. As we show below, these
labels nuance the occupations to which
people aspire, for which they prepare, and
ultimately in which they seek employment.
Influenced also are gatekeepers parents,
educators, employers, friends, and neigh-
bors who guide or control decisions re-
garding training and hiring. The widespread
acceptance ofthese cultural labels may affect
even those who reject them. Applicants who
ignore the labels are likely to encounter pro-
spective employers who accept them im-
plicitly. Nondiscriminating employers may
at least initially have trouble finding appli-
cants for sex-atypical jobs. Even if labels
1 AL _] _ · n . ~
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44
WOMEN'S WORK MEN'S WORK
deter neither employer nor prospective em-
ployee, their acceptance by other employ-
ees or by a prospective employee's family
may deter her or him from taking and keep-
ing a sex-atypical job (Walshok, 1981a).
Contingent Stereotypes
Despite the prevalence and force of sex
stereotyping of occupations, it is clear that
these stereotypes do change over time, often
in response to changing economic condi-
tions. As noted above, secretaries were once
typically male and women thought to be un-
suitable, yet the preponderance of women
in clerical jobs was later rationalized by their
supposed feminine virtues. Economic and
technological factors often vary over time
and space, and stereotypes of the same jobs
often differ according to how these factors
vary. Studies of the age and sex character-
istics of workers in the textile industries of
Japan and the southern United States (Sax-
onhouse and WniEt, 1982) and France Dilly,
1979, 1982) in the first quarter of this cen-
tury illustrate this point. In Japan, agricul-
ture was a family enterprise in which girls
and young women were the least valuable
workers, so their families permitted them
to work temporarily in the textile industry,
as young women die] in New England in an
earlier period (Dublin, 1979~. Single young
women filled textile jobs, even in occupa-
tions that were held elsewhere by men. In
contrast, in the American South entire fam-
ilies 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. The sit-
uation in France was similar: mills hired en-
tire impoverished rural families, but only
boys and men could move up the job ladder
to better-paying, more skilled jobs. These
varied employment practices, a product of
structured economic opportunity interact-
ing with male and parental power and house-
hold patterns of labor allocation, produced
different patterns of sex segregation that
persisted for some time.
The effects on sex segregation of economic
factors, cultural beliefs, and We law are cu-
mulative and reciprocal, but, as we have
seen, this reciprocity can contribute posi-
tively to change. Bumpass (1982) found that
the mothers of young children who worked
between 1970 and 1975 were substantially
less likely to agree that young children suffer
if their mothers work than they had been in
1970. American cultural values about the
sexes have changed since World War II (Ma-
son et al., 1976; Cherlin and Walters, 1981;
Thornton et al., 1983), at least partly in re-
sponse to the women's movement. During
this period women have entered occupa-
tions that were formerly closed to ~em. New
laws and administrative regulations, such as
the interpretation of Title VII of the 1964
Civil Rights Act to proscribe sexual harass-
ment as discriminatory, help to weaken the
link between traditional cultural stereotypes
and employment practices. As these changes
become apparent and are supported by
changes in social values-especially those
embodied in statutes outlawing discrimi-
nation-they transmit to fixture workers and
employers the message that society gives
44 . . ..
women permission to pursue a groat er
range of jobs. Women's movement into oc-
cupations from which they once were ex-
cluded will also contribute to exposing the
discrepancy between reality and many of our
cultural assumptions about the sexes. With
growing awareness that these beliefs are du-
bious and the traits to which they apply al-
terable, women's occupational aspirations
and opportunities should expand accord-
ingly.
BARRIERS TO EMPLOYMENT
A variety of barriers make it difficult for
women to hold certain jobs or exclude them
altogether, thus contributing to their pre-
ponderance in traditionally female occupa-
tions. Evidence suggests that employers
OCR for page 45
EXPLAINING SEX SEGREGATION IN THE WORKPLACE
45
sometimes deny women certain jobs be-
cause of their sex, by discriminating inten-
tionally, by doing so unintentionally, or by
deferring to the discriminatory preferences
of employees or customers. Studies of em-
ployment practices before the passage of the
Civil Rights Act reveal extensive sex seg-
regation and the payment of Tower wages to
women; often these practices were explicitly
codified in rules (Newman, 19761. Until re-
cently, many state laws prohibited employ-
ers from hiring women for certain
occupations or prescribed the conditions un-
der which they could work. Some occupa-
tions (positions on combat ships in the {J. S.
Navy and on combat planes in the U. S. Air
Force, for example) are still closed to women
by law. Practices that have the effect of re-
stricting women's access to some jobs, such
as certain kinds of seniority systems or vet-
erans' preference, are often institutionalized
in formal personnel procedures. Others re-
side in informal aspects of the organization
of work. Although it is impossible to assess
the relative importance of these barriers in
preventing women from entering and pro-
gressing in traditionally male-dominated
jobs, it is essential to examine how they op-
erate in order to propose and assess reme-
dies.
Legal Barriers
Legal barriers that limit women's free oc-
cupational choice are of two types: those
unposed by law or public regulation anct those
instituted by employers that the law en-
courages, permits, or does not effectively
prevent.3 As CIauss (1982) points out, prior
to Me late 1800s tradition and prejudice were
usually sufficient to keep women in the few
occupations deemed appropriate for them,
but when necessary the authority of the law
was invoked to contain women's nontradi
31his section draws heavily on Clauss (1982) and
Boos and Reskin (1984~.
tional aspirations. For example, Justice
Bradley s opinion in Bradwell v. Illinois (83
U.S., 16 Wall., 130, 141-42, 1872), in which
the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a chal-
lenge to an Illinois law prohibiting women's
admission to the bar, reflects the contem
porary view of women:
The natural and proper timidity and delicacy
which belongs to the female sex unfits it for many
of the occupations of civil life. The constitution
of the family organization, which is founded in
the divine ordinance, as well as in the nature of
Wings, indicates the domestic sphere as that which
properly belongs to the domain and Unctions of
womanhood.
The first protective labor law was enacted
in 1874. Although a large literature debates
the motivations of the working men and
women, reformers (many ofthem feminists),
and union leaders who supported protective
labor legislation for women (Freeman, 1971;
Hartmann, 1976; Steinberg, 1982), their
long-run elect unquestionably was to re-
strict women's occupational opportunities
(Beer, 19781. They prohibited women from
doing tasks required by many occupations
such as lifting more than a maximum weight,
working more than a certain number of hours,
or working at night. Some states specifically
prohibited women from holding certain oc-
cupations, including some that supposedly
could corrupt women morally (e.g., bar-
tending) and others (mining, smelting, me-
ter reading, pin setting in bowling alleys,
crossing watchmen, jitney driving, freight
handling or trucking) for which the rationale
is less clear (CIauss, 19821. The legacy of
such laws cannot be overemphasized. Rail-
roads, for example, used the California hour
and weight-liPcing restrictions to justify not
haling women as telegraphers (CIauss, 1982~.
An Illinois company used an 8-hour law for
women to justify paying women operatives
for only 8 hours when they were working
8~/2 hours. Not until the 1964 Civil Rights
Act was passed and litigation occurred were
these laws invalidated. Those that remain
OCR for page 46
46
WOMEN'S WORK, MEN'S WORK
on the books are unenforceable. But even
in the 1960s and 1970s, manufacturers sur-
veyed by the California State Employment
Service often cited weight-icing restric-
tions to justify not hiring women (Bielby and
Baron, 1984~.
In Griggs v. Duke Power Company, 401
U.S. 424 (1971) the Supreme Court inter-
preted Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
to prohibit nonjob-related requirements that
disproportionately exclude members of pro-
tected groups. This ruling opened some oc-
cupations to women. For example, it
invalidated requirements of height and
physical agility that largely barred women
from being officers in the San Francisco Po-
lice Department (Gates, 1976~. Yet many
police (lepartments still maintain such re-
quirements, preventing women from be-
coming police officers (Martin, 1980:47~.
The prohibition against using sex as an
employment criterion under Title VII is not
absolute. Employers may refuse to hire ap-
plicants of one sex if they can show that sex
is a bona fide occupational qualification
(BFOQ) reasonably necessary to their nor-
mal operation (Section 703te]~. Although the
occupations in which sex is a bona fide qual-
ification typically cited are wet nurse and
sperm donor, employers have succeeded in
using the BFOQ provision to justify exclud-
ing women from such jobs as prison chap-
lains or guards (Long v. California State
Personnel Board, 41 Cal. App. 3d 1000, 116
Cal. Rptr. 562, 1974; Dothar~v. Rawlinson,
433 U. S. 321, 1977) because their sexuality
might provoke the passions of violent male
inmates and as international oil executives
because that job involves dealing with al-
legedly sex-prejudiced Latin Americans
(Fernan~z v. Wynn 0d, 20 FEP 1162 [C.D.
Cal.l, 1979~.
Laws and regulations stipulating that pref-
erence be given to veterans- legal under
the Supreme Court's decision in Personnel
Administrators of Massachusetts v. Feeny,
99 S.C. 2282 (1979 - reduce women's ac-
cess to certain jobs. For example, 65 percent
of all government agencies and 57 percent
of municipal agencies preferred veterans
when selecting police officers (Eisenberg et
al., cited in Martin, 1980:47~. Veterans'pref-
erence rules also apply to layoffs and con-
tributed to the higher layoffrates that female
federal government employees in grades
above GS 12 (in which women are under-
represented) experienced in the federal per-
sonne! cuts of 1981 (Federal Government
Service Task Force, 19811. The policy of giv-
inz veterans an advantage was formally
incorporated into criteria for the Compre-
hensive Employment and Training Act
(CETA) trainees in 1978, contributing to
women's underrepresentation in certain
programs relative to their proportion in the
eligible population (Wolf, 19811.
The policy by some employers of exclud-
inz women in their childbearing years from
jobs that might expose them to substances
that are potentially toxic to fetuses has de-
monstrable segregative consequences. Fed-
eral officials have estimated that such policies
close at least 100,000 jobs to women.4 These
jobs are concentrated in industries that have
historically excluded women (CIauss, 1982),
and some observers (Bell, 1979; Wright,
1979) have pointed out that employers use
this policy to exclude women from better-
paying 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.
Olin Corporation, 697 F.2d 1192 Pith Cir.
19821; Zuniga v. Klebert County Hospital,
692 F.2d 986 Pith Cir. 19821~. Until 1978
4 This estimate does not include the number of mil-
itary jobs closed to women because of policies that do
not permit women to occupy jobs that are related to
combat (Boos and Reskin, 1984).
5 Such hazards include the exposure of operating
room nurses to waste anesthetic gases, of beauticians
to hydrocarbon hair spray propellants, and of clerical
workers to photoduplicating fluid.
OCR for page 47
EXPLAINING SEX SEGREGATION IN THE WORKPLACE
47
employers could exclude pregnant women
from certain jobs, even when it meant that
they lost accumulated seniority. Then, in
response to extensive lobbying by women's
groups following the Supreme Court's de-
cision in General Electric v. Gilbert, 429
U.S. 125 (1976), which held that discrimi-
nation against the condition of pregnancy in
employment benefits such as disability in-
surance is not illegal sex discrimination,
Congress amended Title VII to prohibit ctis-
cnmination against pregnant women.
Title VII, provisions of Title IX of the
Educational Amendment Act, and other laws
provide recourse for women who are dis-
criminated against in various conditions of
employment. Yet, private litigation, which
is expensive and lengthy, is seldom a viable
option for many women, and enforcement
agencies and legal rights organizations must
limit the number of cases they pursue
Trough the courts. Satisfactory redress of
many of these cases, even of relatively overt
discrimination, is not therefore easily at-
tained.
Discriminatory Acts and Behavior
Most economic theories of labor market
discrimination were constructed to explain
wage discrimination rather than restrictions
on access to jobs. Nevertheless, we review
them briefly, concentrating on their impli-
cations for segregation in labor markets (for
more extensive discussions, see Treiman and
Hartmann, 1981; Blau, 1984a, 1984b). Gary
Becker's (1957) theory of race discrimination
presumes a "taste" for distance from blacks,
on the part of employers, employees, or cus-
tomers. If employers discriminate, they pay
for that taste by bidding up the wage for
white workers above what would be nec-
essary if they hired blacks. A discriminating
employer would hire blacks only if they were
wiring to work at a wage low enough to
compensate the employer for the "distaste."
Economic considerations could motivate
even unprejudiced employers to discrimi
nate, however. If white employees have a
taste for distance from blacks, they will work
in an integrated workplace only if they are
paid a premium for doing so. Employers will
then lower the wage of blacks in order to
compensate for the higher wage that they
must pay whites when blacks are hired.
Likewise, if customers have discriminatory
tastes, prices will have to be lowered in or-
der to prevent the loss of those customers
to firms employing only whites. Again, the
employer will hire blacks only at a lower
wage in order to compensate for the loss in
revenue from the lower sale price. Very few
efforts have been made to test empirically
any of Becker's hypotheses (Cain, 19841.
However, customer discrimination has been
suggested by Allison (1976) with respect to
the higher wages earned by male than fe-
male beauticians, and Epstein (1981) found
that many law firms attributed their reluct-
ance to hire female attorneys to an antici-
pated loss of clients who they believed pre-
fer maTes.6
Indulging discriminatory tastes could pro-
duce segregation across occupations or es-
tablishments (Blau, 1984b). Assuming that
employers differ in their taste for discrimi-
nation or in their willingness to pay to in-
dulge that taste, the victims of discrimina-
tion, blacks or women, would be totally
absent from some establishments and con-
centrated in others at lower wages (Berg-
mann, 1971, 19741. If employers were more
adverse to hiring women for some jobs than
others (or if male workers in different oc-
cupations expressed different amounts of op-
position), then occupational segregation
would result.
Understanding the reasons for discrimi-
natory tastes might explain why employers'
aversion to hiring women varies across oc-
cupations and why they prefer women for
6 They also cited other reasons, ranging from prob-
lems in providing separate rest rooms to their own
wives' opposition (Epstein, 1981).
OCR for page 72
72
WOMEN'S WORK, MEN'S WORK
minimal and inconsistent with the human
capital explanation, and England (1982) found
that single, childless white women were no
more likely than other white women to be
employed in sex-atypical occupations.
A more direct test examines the relation-
ship between discontinuous participation and
employment in a female-dominated occu-
pation. Polachek (1981a) showed that years
out of the labor force increased women's
probability of working in female-dominatec!
major occupational categories. In a simula-
tion he also showed that if all women work-
ers were employed continuously, their rep-
resentation would increase in broad census
categories for professional, managerial, and
technical occupations and decrease in the
operative and clerical categories. But Cor-
coran et al. (1984) pointed out that even
under the assumption of continuous em-
ployment in Polachek's simulation, the in-
dex of segregation would decline by only two
points.
Contrary to the human capital precliction,
wombats actual employment continuity does
not appear to be related to holding a female-
typed occupation. England's (1982) analysis
of 3,754 mature women ages 30 44 in the
National Longitudinal Survey found that the
percentage of time they had been employed
since completing school did not vary with
the sex composition of their first or most
recent occupation. Nor was the sex com-
position of their first occupation correlated
with the proportion of (presurvey) years
women eventually spent in the labor force
(England, 19821. Moreover, the rates at
which the earnings of women in predomi-
nantly female occupations appreciated with
experience did not differ from those for
women in less segregated occupations. Eng-
land (1984) replicated these findings in a
similar analysis of workers surveyed in the
University of Michigan's Pane] Study of In-
come Dynamics. If the human capital ex-
planation is correct, the negative elect of
tune out of the labor force on earnings should
have been greater in male-dominated oc
cupations, but the sizes ofthe effect for more
and less male occupations Ridered slightly
or not at all. Polachek (1979) has demon-
strated that time out of the labor force is
positively correlated with wage loss, but not
the crucial point that women's human capital
depreciates less in predominantly female oc-
cupations. In sum, Polachek's thesis has lit-
tle support. There is no clear evidence that
female occupations penalize intermittence
less than male occupations, nor is there much
evidence that women who spend more time
at home or expect to do so are apt to choose
such occupations (England, 1984~.
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. This implies that wage losses fol-
lowing a career interruption should be fol-
lowed by a period of rapid wage growth.
Corcoran et al. (1984) confirmed this for em-
ployed wives and female heads of house-
holds whose labor market behavior was ob-
served over a 13-year period. These women
displayed both the hypothesized wage loss
after being out of the labor force and the
hypothesized period of rapid recovery upon
reentry, so that their net loss of wages was
small. As Corcoran et al. point out, this re-
bound effect has important implications for
the human capital explanation of segrega-
tion. If depreciation is quickly repaired, it
is not economically rational for intermittent
workers either to choose minimal invest-
ments or to postpone investing in job train-
ing until they have returned to the labor
force on a permanent basis. And even if fe-
male-dominated occupations penalized
women less than male-dominated occupa-
tions for dropping out, the long-run penal-
ties are too small to support the inference
that it is economically rational for women to
choose such occupations, given their lower
wages and lesser return to experience. In
fact, England (1984) found that women in
OCR for page 73
EXPLAINING SEX SEGREGATION IN THE WORKPLACE
male-dominated occupations have higher
Onetime earnings than women in female-
dominated ones, suggesting that it is not
economically rational to choose predomi-
nantly female occupations to maximize life-
time earnings.
The ability of the human capital approach
to explain sex segregation ultimately de-
pends on determining what women believe
is true and how they make labor market
decisions. Unfortunately, we know very lit-
tle about the beliefs women hold with re-
spect to their own investments in human
capital or the extent to which their occu-
pational choices conform to the mode! of
economic rationality. In general, when be-
havior is subject to such strong structural
and cultural constraints as women's work is,
there is less reason to expect a theory that
assumes economic optimization to hold.
While fumier research on women's own
views of the trade-offs between investments
in training, wage gains, and time spent with
children might illuminate some of the as-
sumptions of this approach, the lack of em-
pirical confirmation suggests that if women
choose female-dominated occupations, they
probably do not clo so because they think
such occupations will maximize their life-
tune earnings. Though the empirical evi-
dence is limited, women may choose to limit
their work commitment because of familial
arrangements. It is even more likely that
such a choice is subject to considerable con-
straint, as we examine below with regard to
child care.
Child Care and Occupational Segregation
The custom of assigning primary respon-
sibility for child care to women has histor-
ically restricted their participation in the
work force and in education and training
programs. To a lesser degree it continues to
do so. This can be seen in the differential
labor force participation rates of women by
the presence and age of their chilclren. For
e&le, in March 1982 half the women with
73
children under age six were in the labor
force compared with two-thirds of those with
school-age children (U.S. Department of
Labor, Women's Bureau, 1982b). The belief
that young children whose mothers work
suffer has contributed to the deterrent effect
of having young children on women's em-
ployment, although the proportion of work-
ing mothers who believe that their em-
ployment will harm their children has
declined markedly during the past decade
(Bumpass, 19821. Recent reviews ofresearch
(Kamerman and Hayes, 1982; Hayes and Ka-
merman, 1983) indicate that the children of
working mothers super no discernible ill ef-
fects from their mothers' employment (to
the contrary, the added income demons-
trably improves the lives of some children),
that both wage-working and at-home moth-
ers behave similarly toward their children
(in such areas as school visits, for example),
and that the children of both wage-working
and at-home mothers also spend their time
similarly (in play, homework, sports, tele-
vision viewing, etc.~.
Evidence also suggests, however, that the
lack of adequate, affordable, and convenient
child care prevents some women from par-
ticipating 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 nonem-
ployed women is not in the labor force be-
cause she cannot find satisfactory child care
(Shortlidge, 1977; Presser and Baldwin,
19801. National Longitudinal Survey data
from 1971 for mothers with children under
age six suggest that these figures may be
even higher for black women: 26 percent of
black mothers surveyed reportedly were
constrained from employment by the lack of
adequate day care compared with only 5
percent of the white mothers, and 47 per-
cent of the nonemployed black and 13 per-
cent of white mothers said that they would
look for jobs immediately if Dee day care
were available (U. S. Department of Labor,
Manpower Administration, 19751.
OCR for page 74
74
WOMEN,S WOW, MEN'S WORK
lke absence of flexible child care alter-
natives may also restrict some women to jobs
with certain hours, those that do not require
overtime or weekend work, and those that
permit time off for children's illnesses. Ibe
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1981b)
reviews several studies indicating that the
unavailability of adequate child care pre-
vents women from increasing their hours of
employment. The 1977 Current Population
Survey on child care indicated that 16 per-
cent of employed women would work more
hours if they could locate suitable child care
(Presser and Baldwin, 19801. Limiting their
work hours can in turn reduce women's
prospects for promotion, restrict them to
jobs for which they are overqualified, or make
it impossible for them to take courses that
would improve their job options. Survey data
confirm the problem child care presents for
many employed women (Astir, 1969; Na-
tional Commission on Working Women,
1979~. One in 12 of the employed women
surveyed In the 1977 special Current Pop-
ulation Survey on child care cared for their
children while they were at work (U. S. De-
partnent of Commerce, Bureau of Me Cen-
sus, 1982:61. One in eight women in blue-
coDar and service occupations clid so, many
of whom managed by working in their own
homes (U. S. Department of Commerce, Bu-
reau of the Census, 1982:26~. It seems likely
that most of these women were restricted
to low-paying, pre(lominantly female occu-
pations like direct mail or telephone sales.
Ike U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
(1981b) details the ways in which the lack
of child care restricts women's ability ancl,
in the case of the Work Incentive Program
(17VIN), their legal right to take advantage of
important federal job training programs. Al-
though they discovered no estimates as to
the number of women who are denied access
to programs because they lack child care,
the commission reports that since 1972 fed-
eral regulations have required that child care
be available before a women is referral for
employment or training and describes a 1977
study that identified the lack of adequate
child care as one of two primary reasons why
women WIN registrants were less likely than
men to be assigned to either training or a
job.
Employed women vary widely in the type
of child care they both use (U.S. Depart-
ment of Commerce, Bureau of the Census,
1982) and prefer (Presser and Baldwin, 19803.
Many women prefer family-based care to
group care (U.S. Department of Labor,
Manpower Administration, 1975), although
working women surveyed by Paskoff pre-
ferred day care at the workplace (cited in
U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bu-
reau, 1982b). Moreover, as Presser and
Baldwin (1980) have shown, it is often the
most disadvantaged women young, un-
married, minority, and low-income moth-
ers who are least likely to locate satisfac-
tory arrangements that they can afford. Full-
time blue-collar and service workers are less
than half as likely as mothers in white-colIar
occupations to use group child care and more
likely to depend on their children's fathers
(U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of
the Census, 1982), probably through ar-
ranging for parents to work different shifts
(Presser, 19801. And finally, some parents
do not find any arrangements. Sandra Hof-
ferth (1979) estimated that 32,000 pre-
schoolers were caring for themselves in 1975.
The 1977 Current Population Survey (U.S.
Department of Commerce, Bureau of the
Census, 1982:42) revealed self-care for .3
percent of the children under five whose
mothers worked fillI-time and .5 percent of
the children of mothers employed part-dine.
Unfortunately, none of the available stud-
ies tells us how many employed women
might be able to work in less sex-typed oc-
cupations if they were not constrained by
their need for child care, but the constraints
on employment opportunities that inade-
quate child care presents for some women
are indisputable. It is also important not to
lose sight of the fact that some employers
may make hiring decisions based on their
OCR for page 75
EXPLAINING
SEGREGATION IN THE WORKPLACE
beliefs about individual women's need for
child care and the probable reliability of that
care. Employers may sometimes be reluc-
tant to hire or promote mothers, even those
who have secured adequate child care, for
certain jobs because they question whether
their child care is adequate. We also noted
above that male workers may attempt to
reinforce women's sense of responsibility for
housework and chilct care through their own
behavior on the job and at home. Such be-
havior would also contribute to job segre-
gation.
Conclusion
In sum, although the research evidence
does not enable us to say that women's great-
er responsibility for child care, housework,
and family care necessarily contributes to
sex segregation in the workplace, it almost
certainly plays an important role in limiting
their employment opportunities in general.
Some women (and men) may of course freely
choose to place rainily responsibilities first
in their lives and employment and work ca-
reers second or lower. Whenever women's
choices and opportunities are constrained,
however, as they most certainly are by fam-
ilial responsibilities and the lack of alter-
native social arrangements for family care,
we must be concerned. For some women,
familial responsibilities are clearly not cho-
sen but are a burden thrust on them. For
others, especially those for whom economic
need is greatest, family responsibilities con-
tribute all the more to their need for equal
opportunity and equitable pay in the work-
place. Yet others may feel compelled to bear
the greater share of home and family care
because their own earning ability is limited
compared with their husbands or other male
providers. Finally, for most if not ah women,
the powerful cultural beliefs regarding wom-
en's "natural" responsibility for children,
men, and homes enter the workplace un-
bidden, conditioning many aspects of their
employment.
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 persis-
tence of the sex segregation of jobs. Such an
approach runs the risk of losing sight of the
interrelationship between opportunities and
decisions that occurs within the labor mar-
ket. Workers' occupational decisions are of-
ten influenced by what they find in the labor
market. The labor market presents workers
with an occupational opportunity structure
that is affected not so much by the actions
of any one employer but is rather the cu-
mulated effect of the actions of many. Over
time, of course, opportunity structures
change, at least partly as employers respond
to changes in workers' behavior. In this sec-
tion we examine evidence regarding the role
of the occupational opportunity structure in
shaping workers' preferences, knowledge,
and occupational outcomes, and thereby
contributing to the perpetuation of sex seg-
regation.
Lloyd Reynolds (1951), in a major con-
tribution to the analysis of labor markets,
noted that the vacancies to which people
have access when they enter the labor mar-
ket strongly affect the occupations in which
they end up. Reynolds characterized the job
mobility Drocess as involving a job search
(often based on tips from friends and rela-
tives) that typically culminates in a worker
taking the first acceptable job offered.22 Be-
cause jobs are filled rapidly, workers are
seldom in the position to choose among al
~ See Kahn (1978), Sandell (1980)' and Gera and
Hasan (1982) for further discussion of He job search
process.
OCR for page 76
76
WOMEN'S WORK, MEN,S WORK
ternatives. Reynolds concluded that changes
In demand induce the adaptation of the labor
supply: opportunity must precede move-
ment. Sociologists, too (White, 1970; So-
rensen, 1975, 1977; Spilerman, 1977; Konda
and Stewman, 1980), have stressed the im-
portance of opportunities in determining
workers' occupational outcomes. In this
scheme, workers' personal characteristics are
important primarily as a basis for rationing
vacancies in better jobs among the supply
of potential applicants, an idea further de-
veloped by Thurow (1975~. When gender is
used systematically by employers as the ba-
sis for selecting workers for certain occu-
pations, sex segregation results.
Ihis emphasis on opportunities is con-
sistent with research on labor market be-
havior. Workers frequently do not make ca-
reer plans until they have left school and
entered the labor market. For example, more
than half the workers that Lipset and his
aoDeagues (Bendix et al., 1954) surveyed had
no specific job plans while in school, and
members of a national sample of college stu-
dents who did have career plans changed
them often (Davis, 1965~. Once in the labor
market, many young workers move from job
to job seeking work that suits them through
trial and error (Folk, 1968; Hall and Kasten,
1976; Sorensen, 1977; Rosenfeld, 1979), be-
fore settling into semipermanent posi-
tions.23 Examining mobility data from the
1970 census, Rosenfeld and Sorensen (1979)
found that young (ages 20-31) anti, to a small-
er degree, older (ages 32-41) workers of both
sexes frequently changed occupations. Dur-
ing the previous five years, 35 percent of
young men and 29 percent of young women
moved Tom one to another of the 11 broad
occupational categories, and 22 percent of
older workers did so. More than one in nine
people over age 18 who were employed in
January 1977 worked in a different detailed
23 Rosenfeld (1984) reviews these and other theories
of labor market mobility for young male workers.
Occupational category a year later (Rosen-
feld, 19791. Jacobs (1983) found that 55 per-
cent of women ages 30-44 in 1967 worked
in a different three-digit occupation 10 years
later. Spilerman (1977) revealed similar re-
sults for male construction workers, truck
drivers, and mail carriers: between 33 and
43 percent of workers in their twenties
changed occupations during a five-year pe-
riod, as did between 13 and 27 percent of
those in their thirties. Such mobility sug-
gests that career decisions made prior to
entering the labor force are important for
only a minority of workers. It is rather that
their labor market careers are likely to be
shaped by the opportunities they find.
Unfortunately, most systematic research
on the effect of job openings on occupational
attainment has been limited to men (Rosen-
feld, 1982), so evidence of the effect of op-
portunities on women's labor market be-
havior is largely indirect. The evidence is of
three types. The first shows women's re-
sponsiveness to labor market conditions and
the actual availability of jobs regardless of
prior sex labeling. The second shows that
the opportunity structure is highly differ-
entiated by sex. The third demonstrates flex-
ibility in workers' preferences and aspi-
rations.
Substantial evidence suggests that wom-
en's response to labor market conditions and
job availability is strong. Cain (1966), Min-
cer (1962a), and others have demonstrated
that the unprecedented influx of women into
the labor force since World War II was a
response to increases in wage rates offered.
Oppenheimer (1970) has argued that be-
cause many of the new jobs created since
the mid-194Os were in occupations consid-
ered to be "women's work," the rise in fe-
male labor force participation can be under-
stood as a response to job opportunities that
had not previously existed for women.
Moreover, once in the labor force, the de-
cisions of women to move from one job to
another are as strongly influenced as those
of men by the wage rate in the current job
OCR for page 77
EXPLAINING SEX SEGREGATION IN THE WORKPLACE
and by the long-run earning prospects of-
fered by ajob change (Blau and Kahn, 1981b).
Furthermore, women are responsive to
particular occupational openings. When oc-
cupations have become open, women have
responded by moving into them ---regard-
iess of their prior sex label. For example,
within a 20-year period, the proportion of
clerical workers who were women increased
from less than 5 percent in 1880 to over 30
percent in 1900; 20 years later, women made
up half of all clerical workers (Rotelia, 19811.
During World War II, when employers wel-
comed applications from women, their num-
bers in such jobs as welding that were for-
merly almost exclusively male increased
tremendously. 24 Black women's rapid move-
ment out of domestic service and into cler-
ical occupations (Malveaux, 1982b) that
opened to them during the 1960s and 1970s
provides another example of women's re-
sponsiveness to the availability of occupa-
tions. During the 1970s, sharp increases oc-
curred in We proportions of women obtaining
professional degrees in fields such as law and
medicine, which have been dominated by
men. We rapid increase in the number of
women mining coal (HaD, 1981; CIauss, 1982)
indicates that nonprofessional and physically
arduous occupations also attract women when
they believe they have a chance at jobs. In
1972, no women applied for mining jobs at
Peabody Coal Company in Kentucky, the
nation's largest coal producer; by 1978, after
it had become known Mat women were being
hired, 1,131 women applied for mining jobs
24 Milan (1980:103) quotes a 1943 billboard
"What Job is mine on the Victory Line?"
If you've sewed on buttons, or made but-
tonholes, on a machine,
you can learn to do spot welding on
airplane parts.
If you've used an electric mixer in your
kitchen,
you can learn to run a drill press.
If you've followed recipes exactly in mak-
ing calces,
you can learn to load shell.
77
(Working Women, 19811. A similar growth
occurred in applications by women for jobs
in shipbuilding yards, when the Maritime
Administration began requiring the ship-
building contractors to establish goals and
timetables for the increased employment of
women. The shipbuilding contractors found
that as more women were hired, more wom-
en applied. Unquestionably, the key reason
for the increase of women in this case was
goals and timetables (Federal Register 42,
No. 158:41379-80), but while equal em-
ployment opportunity policies played a role
in many of these examples, their effect is
hard to document. A more systematic effort
is left for the next chapter.25
This is not to say that large pools of women
are available for all male-dominated occu-
pations. Employers sometimes claim that
they cannot comply with federally mandated
affirmative action requirements because the
pool of eligible women is too small (U.S.
Department of Labor, Employment Stan-
dards Administration, 19811. But shortages
are probably most common in occupations
that require preemployment training. Of
course, women may lack enthusiasm for oc-
cupations in which they believe they will
encounter hostility or other clifficulties or
those in which their femininity might be
questioned (Strober, 1984). 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 (Ash-
enfelter 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). We discuss their conclusions in the next
chapter. Here it is sufficient to mention the difficulty
involved in demonstrating the impact of the passage of
equal employment laws and regulations on the actual
availability of opportunities. The dramatic effect of the
passage and enforcement of the 1965 Voting Rights Act
on voting by blacks (U. S. Commission on Civil Rights,
1981a) provides some evidence of the impact on peo-
ple's behavior of legal changes that open up opportun-
ities.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
labor market
78
WOMEN'S WORK, MEN'S WORK
-
notes, young women, for whom norms about
appropriate female behavior are salient, may
be especially reluctant to take jobs labeled
male. After their middle twenties, however,
women are less likely to be deterred by the
possibility that they may appear unfeminine
and more likely to be influenced by the fact
that predominantly male jobs are better paid.
Chat women have generally responded to
opportunities as they became available does
not mean that they are not also constrained
in their behavior and does not belie the basic
sex-differentiated structure of opportuni-
ties. For example, as noted above, family
obligations may constrain women's re-
sponses to particular types of openings.
Moreover, despite the opening of new oc-
cupations to women, some areas are still
explicitly closed to women and many others
are implicitly so, as the evidence of barriers
in the workplace reviewed above demon-
strates. In particular, opportunities at the
establishment level are apparently extreme-
ly sex-segregated. As Bielby and Baron (1984)
found for a sample of California firms, nearly
60 percent were totally segregated, i.e., were
either aD male or all female or had a job
structure in which each job category was
occupied by a single sex. Within establish-
ments, particularly large establishments,
rules govern workers' opportunities. Rules
governing seniority, job bidding rights,
transfer, leaves, and so on have often con-
tributed to restricting women's career ad-
vancement ancI concentrating them in fe-
male-dominated jobs. Throughout the
economy, the index of segregation remains
over 60 women often work with women
and men with men, and women's occupa-
tions are lower paid. An individual could not
fad! to notice the sex-typing of jobs and the
EXAMINING SEX SEGREGATION IN THE WORSE
79
et al., 1984), suggest that a moderate amount
of mobility occurs across sex-typed occu-
pations.
Evidence also shows that structural fac-
tors continue to influence workers' behavior
and attitudes after they enter the labor mar-
ket. Theorists of labor market segmentation
argue that workers' motivation and behavior
are governed both by their position in labor
market segments and, within organizations,
on job ladders (Stevenson, 1978; Harrison
and Sum, 1979~. For example, the turnover
rates of both sexes are affected by the type
of job they hold, so controlling for the latter
accounts almost completely for sex differ-
ences in turnover (U.S. Department of La-
bor, Women's Bureau, 1975; Lloyd and Nie-
mi, 1979; Haber et al., 19831. Recent
evidence indicates similar effects of job char-
actenstics on the psychological functioning
of both women and men (Miller et al., 1979;
Krause et al., 1982; Kohn et al., 19831. Peo-
ple's jobs socialize them to certain attitudes
toward work. It follows that exposure to var-
ious work opportunities ant! experiences af-
fects workers' occupational preferences. For
example, longitudinal analysis of mature
employed women revealed that their atti-
tudes toward work became more favorable
in response to their employment experi-
ences (Ferree, 19801. The opportunity struc-
ture can also be expected to have an effect
on workers' occupational aspirations. To il-
{ustrate, about half the women in tradition-
aBy mate skilled craft jobs whom Walshok
(1981a) studied had some childhood access
to nontraditional work skills, but, according
to Walshok, because they also realized that
these fields offered no opportunities for
women, they did not seek craR jobs until
opportunities opened up. For example, a
plumber described her experience: "I've al-
ways liked tools . . . (but) it never occurred
to me that I would ever be a plumber until
somebody handed me a wrench and said
'Hop to it.' I just happened to run into that
particular opportunity . . ." (p. 1691. It seems
likely, then, that women's aspirations and
preferences change as their perception of
opportunities changes and that the occu-
pational opportunity structure is an impor-
tant determinant of their preferences.
These findings suggest a fluidity in the
labor market, in workers, and in their oc-
cupational preferences. Apparently, work-
ers can and do circulate in and out of sex-
atypical occupations. Our discussion of in-
formal barriers above suggested some rea-
sons why workers might leave sex-atypical
occupations, but farther systematic longi-
tudinal research is clearly neecled to un-
derstand the circulation of workers across
sex-typed occupations. These frequent job
changes belie the claim that segregation re-
flects the relatively stable choices of women
ant! men stemming from their childhood sex-
role socialization but support the thesis that
workers' job outcomes reflect the available
opportunities. The amount of movement be-
tween sex-typical and sex-atypical occupa-
tions and the responsiveness of women
workers to new opportunities makes the
continued high degree of sex segregation in
the economy even more remarkable. Clear-
ly, theories of occupational sex segregation
and of discrimination will have to take into
account the movement of workers of both
sexes in and out of sex-atypical occupations.
Further research wiD be needed to ascertain
to what extent these occupational changes
actually involve movement across sex-typed
jobs. 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. First,
the occupational opportunity structure af-
fects workers' decisions by affecting their
knowledge of job opportunities as well as
their preferences. As we noted above in dis-
cussing institutionalized barriers in the
workplace, many employers use referrals
from other workers as an important recruit-
ment technique. Thus potential applicants
hear about available jobs from friends and
other informal networks that tend to be sex
80
WOMEN'S WORK, MEN'S WORK
segregated. Women are more likely to hear
about available jobs from other women, and,
because of the sex-segregated occupational
structure, these women are likely to be in
women's jobs. Second, it is important to re-
member that while the occupational oppor-
tunity structure results in part from em-
ployers' actions, taken together, workers also
participate in its development. Employers
determine whom to hire and in what posi-
tion, but workers sometimes play an active
role, for example when whites or men object
to minorities or women (Bergmann and
Darnty, 1981), or when applicants accept or
refuse jobs that are offered. As Strober (1984)
notes, if white men refuse a job at the wage
offered, employers may try to hire women
or minority men. If some women or minority
men accept it, their acceptance will signal
to yet others that this job is now available
to them.
CONCLUSION
From our examination of the evidence for
several alternative and interrelated expla-
nations of sex segregation, our primary con-
clusion is that women's occupational choices
and preferences play a limited role in ex-
plaining occupational segregation by sex.
Both explanations for occupational seg-
regation that focus on women's own choices
sex-role socialization and human capital the-
ory recognize that cultural values about
men and women condition their socializa-
tion and their subsequent educational
choices. Sex-role socialization is thought to
contribute to labor market segregation by
encouraging girls to be primarily responsi-
ble for domestic work and boys for bread-
winning and by identifying sex-appropriate
occupations. Each gender is not only so-
cialized to perform sex-specific primary adult
roles, but each is also taught the skills, vaI-
ues, and occupational aspirations compati-
ble with them. The socialization process also
encourages the development of different sex-
1irlked personality traits that may ultimately
affect the occupations to which women and
men fee! suited. The occupational aspira-
tions of boys and girls continue to differ as
do some occupationally related skills and
values, although these differences have de-
clined in the recent past. These differences
are consistent with what we know of the
content of sex-role socialization: parents,
teachers, and counselors treat girls and boys
clifferently and hold different goals for them.
Tracking still occurs within the public school
system, as does sex stereotyping in chil-
dren's books, including textbooks, and the
mass media. Although the link is not estab-
lished unequivocally, it seems likely that so-
cialization contributes to sex differences in
aspirations, preferences, skills, and values
and therefore probably contributes to oc-
cupational segregation, but we are unsure
about the size of any contribution ant! the
value of focusing on sex-role socialization as
a locus of change. Our literature review sug-
gests that the impact of preemployment sex
differences in abilities and values on occu-
pational outcomes is probably small, except
in those occupations that require skills that
are usually acquired prior to employment.
Further research to Claris the role of oc-
cupational aspirations in producing sex-typed
occupational outcomes is clearly indicated.
The sizable amount of mobility that occurs
across occupations, and more specifically
across sex-typical and sex-atypical occupa-
tions, is inconsistent with the view that out-
comes reflect fixed occupational prefer-
ences. Rather we have seen that preferences
are likely to change over a lifetime, partic-
ularly in response to new opportunities. The
shifts that have been observed in women's
occupational aspirations in recent years are
consistent with expanding job opportunities
for women in a broader range of occupations.
That young women often expect to pursue
more traditional occupations than those to
which they aspire reinforces our argument
that the perceived opportunity structure is
of central importance in determining both
preferences and outcomes. The educational
EXPLAINING SEX SEGREGATION IN THE WORKPLACE
system also contributes to segregation by
tracking students in sex-typical vocational
courses. The failure of schools to present a
wide range of occupational possibilities to
students regardless of their sex necessarily
narrows the job possibilities that they are
likely to pursue later.
Advocates of the human capital theory of
sex segregation, a second major explanation
that attributes sex segregation to women's
choices, have constructed! an internally plau-
sible account of how segregation could result
Mom the economically rational decisions by
women who plan to raise families to limit
their investments in training and pursue cer-
tain occupations. Women do fad] to acquire
the training necessary for many jobs, but it
is not clear how much this reflects their own
choices, lack of encouragement, or the ex-
istence of obstacles to their doing so. At-
tempts to assess the theory by examining
patterns of sex segregation by marital status
have yielded conflicting results. Ike results
of studies based on panel data that provide
the most direct tests have been inconsistent
with the theory's predictions. Women who
spend more time out of the labor force are
no more apt to choose female-dominated oc-
cupations than those who plan continuous
employment, and female occupations do not
penalize intermittent labor force participa-
tion less than maTe-dominated ones. Fur-
thermore, any depreciation in women's oc-
cupational 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. The
connections between familial responsibili-
ties and work deserve additional research
attention, however, because it seems likely
that family care obligations do influence peo-
ple's labor market behavior.
Ibe limited effect of socialization and re-
latecl factors that can be demonstrated di-
rects our attention to the role offorces within
the labor market that limit the set of occu
81
pations from which women workers can
choose. Ibis approach recognizes the active
role employers play in the labor market as
well as the existence of other barriers that
reduce women's options. A variety of bar-
riers prevent women from exercising free
occupational choice. Some barriers were
codified into laws, ant! others were permit-
ted by the courts. Most such laws are now
invalid, but their legacy lingers in both em-
ployment practices and the current segre-
gated occupational structure. It is important
to recall that cultural beliefs about women's
proper roles influence decisions by employ-
ers and male coworkers. Their behavior as
well as institutionalized personnel practices
also create barriers in the labor market. On
these grounds we conclude that sex segre-
gation cannot be ascribed primarily to wom-
en's choice of female-dominated occupa-
tions.
As we have shown, women's exclusion
from many occupations has unquestionably
contributed to segregation. An examination
of the operation of labor markets and of the
importance of the occupational structure re-
viewed indicates that the labor market out-
comes of both men and women commonly
depend on the opportunities that are known
and open to them. These opportunities have
been largely determined by employers and
other decision makers in influential posi-
tions. Employers have in many instances
structured their workplace and personnel
policies in ways that have established and
reinforced job segregation, but employers
also respond to changes in women's and
men's attitudes as well as to government
initiatives. Consequently the opportunities
available to women expand at the same time
that public and private awareness of chang-
ing attitudes grows. As opportunities have
expanded in the past, women have rapidly
responded. This seems to be the best ex-
planation for some rather dramatic changes
over the past decade in women's represen-
tation in a variety of occupations, which we
examined in Chapter 2.
82
WOMEN'S WORK MEN'S WORK
These conclusions have implications for
different types of intervention. If it were
possible and desirable to do so, reducing sex
differences in personal traits produced by
socialization without changing the labor
market would probably reduce segregation
only swiftly. Moreover, early sex-role so-
cialization is probably less amenable to pol-
icy intervention than are some factors that
come into play later, such as tracking in
schools ant! barriers women encounter in
the labor market. Eliminating the latter fac-
tors should contribute to changes in wom-
en's occupational aspirations, as well as an
increase in their opportunities, and thus both
directly and indirectly modify women's dis-
tribution across occupations. In the next
chapter our examination of the effectiveness
of a variety of interventions further dem-
onstrates the close relationship between op-
portunities and workers' behavior and illus-
trates important sources of further change.
