Sex Segregation in the Workplace Trends, Explanations, Remedies (1984) / Chapter Skim
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2 Trends in Occupational Segregation by Sex and Race, 1960-1981
2 Trends in Occupational Segregation by Sex and Race, 1960-1981
Pages 11-26
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From page 11... ...
(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 employment opportunity (EEO)
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From page 12... ...
For example, to determine the effect of changes in the sex composition within occupations on the changes in the segregation index from year t - 1 to year t, the index of segregation for year t can be computed standarclizing the size of occupations to year t - 1. Thus, the employment standardized index of segregation holds constant the distribution of employment across occupations (occupational mix)
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From page 13... ...
This allows us to decompose the index of the subgroup into the effects of occupational mix and sex composition. 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.
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From page 14... ...
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tapes; and Bureau of Labor Statistics, annual averages of monthly Current Population Surveys, 1972, 1977, and 1981, unpublished tabulations.
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From page 15... ...
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.
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From page 16... ...
The segregation indexes for these experience 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.
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From page 17... ...
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)
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From page 18... ...
Each detailed occupation is assigned a sex label defined by deviations in its sex composition of + .05 from that of the labor force as a whole. According to this definition, occupations are categorized as male if in 1960 the percentage of males equaled or exceeded .722; in 1970, .669; in 1971, .668; and in 1977, .640.
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From page 19... ...
Thus, while women had become more occupationally concentrated during the 1960s, they began entering nontraditional occupations at a greater rate than the labor force as a whole during the 1970s. Male occupations also became relatively more male on average during the 1960s in every broad occupational category with the exception of clerical.
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From page 20... ...
toward less segregated occupations 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 segregation.
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From page 21... ...
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, although some similarities exist.
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From page 22... ...
Although the number of whites employed as bookkeepers increased between 1972 and 1981, the proportion of the white female labor force that crowded into this traditionally female occupation declined from 5.2 to 4.6 percent. While men entered the two expanding traditionally female occupations waiters and waitresses, and hairdressers and cosmetologists at an increasing rate over this period, the male share of white employment increased from 7.2 percent to 9.2 percent in the former and from 9.2 to 11.1 percent in the latter.
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From page 23... ...
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 composition of traditionally male occupations. The marked declines in sex segregation in professional occupations apparent among whites dice not hold for nonwhites, but nonwhite professionals were much less segregated than white professionals at the start of the decade.
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From page 24... ...
Another comparability problem arose in that the segregation indexes computed using 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.
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From page 25... ...
: 358-70. 1975 "A Note on Sex Segregation in Professional Occupations." Explorations in Economic Research 2 (Winter)
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From page 26... ...
1982a Employment and Earnings 29~5~:Table J 1982b Labor Force Statistics Derived from the Current Population Survey: A Databook 1 (Bulletin 2096~:Table C-23.
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