James W. Grimm

Sex Roles and Internal Labor Market Structures: The “Female” Semi-Professions

After drawing a distinction between internal and external labor market analysis, patterns in the sex structure of employment markets in nursing, social work, librarianship, and school teaching are examined. Findings indicate that the relative number of men employed in these “female” fields has increased and that males are disproportionately represented in the administrative components of the “female” semi-professions. The role which internal labor market structures play in determining the continuance of boundaries to “male” and “female” work is discussed.

Patterns of Sex Desegregation in Managerial and Professional Specialty Fields, 1950-1980

Sex desegregation in over 100 managerial and professional specialty occupations were examined during the periods 1950-1960, 1960-1970, and 1970-1980. Three patterns of desegregation were theoretically derived and empirical support for each of them was found: female entry into male fields, male entry into female occupations, and the gender-switching process in which a field is left by men and entered by women. Rapid growth was found to be associated with the first two patterns, and declines in occupational size with the last. Findings indicated that desegregation is both widespread and increasing in higher status fields. Nevertheless, desegregation rates are higher in occupations which pay men less and which are declining in size. The highest-paying fields continue to be more resistant to sex desegregation.

The Contemporary Foreman Status Illustrative Evidence from an Automobile Assembly Plant

We have completed a pilot study of 34 foremen in a modern automobile assembly plant. Our findings generally support the ideas that the contemporary foremans position involves less role conflict and more satisfaction than is commonly supposed in the literature. When we differentiated management-oriented supervisors from dualoriented foremen, we found no statistically meaningful differences in their rates of interaction with others or the reported quality of such relationships. Two other components of self-perception of the supervisors were found to be statistically related to the reported quality of interaction with others and to job satisfaction: namely, feelings of power and security. Although both these perceptions were statistically related to a management orientation in our sample, they were found to be unrelated to the traits of background and career experience that correlated with a management identification. Results suggest the need for studying the independent sets of conditions that lead to foremens orientations toward management and their feelings of power and security. Finally, our study suggests that supervisors are less troubled by the demands of their current status than by their perception that they will be unable to advance further in management. Further study of the implications of the actual and perceived promotions opportunity for foremen is in order.

Using social network principles to structure linkages between providers and patients

This paper uses social network principles to explain the sources of and variations in relationships among health care providers and patients. General principles of social networks applied are global structure, structural equivalence, structural conduciveness, and the duality of network linkages. Specific principles employed to understand structural variability in provider interrelationships are structural encapsulation and structural excludability, centrality and integration, subgroups and structural holes, close ties versus weak ties, and the virtual ties created by computersupported social networks (CSSNs). Various ways that social network principles help explain the evolving complexities of interconnectedness among health care providers and patients are demonstrated. Practical advantages of using social network principles to organize and to manage interrelationships among health care providers and patients are discussed.

Patterns of communication in occupational/professional publications

This article concerns the initial phase of the authors’ research on occupational publications as sources of on‐going socialization. Four occupational publications were studied: The ABA Banking journal, The Journal of Family Practice, Guitar Player, and The Secretary. Findings indicate that journals communicate both simple and more complex occupational information, the former in advertisements and the latter in written discourse. The relationships between the nature of occupational messages and how they are presented hold despite substantial differences in overall journal formats. The authors demonstrate that the journals emphasize problematic issues related to work activity, how operating environments are changing occupational activity, and the promise that particular occupational tools will make the outcomes of complex, unpredictable work activity more certain. The authors conclude by deriving several working hypotheses to be systematically tested in future research.

The influence of mid-life adult status and functional health status on health lifestyles

The objective of this chapter was to advance the medical sociology theoretical literature on health lifestyle behaviors. This study investigated the influence of mid-life adult statuses (gender, marital status, parenthood, presence of children in the home, and employment status) and functional health status (general physical health, general mental health, vitality, and social functioning) on selected health-related behaviors. These behaviors included preventive medicine behaviors (routine physical exams, cholesterol checks, and blood pressure checks), risk-taking behaviors (driving above the speed limit, smoking, and consuming alcohol), health promoting behaviors (exercising, sleeping well, and relaxing), and medication usage (using prescribed medicines, over-the-counter medicines, and herbal supplements). The data were gathered through the Warren County Health Survey, a telephone survey of a randomly selected sample of residents from a county in Kentucky. Logistic regression was used to analyze the data. Results indicated that having children at home, being married, being fifty years old or older, and possessing better mental health and social functioning statuses were associated with a greater likelihood of practicing better health-related behaviors. In contrast, being both male and aged 49 and younger were correlated with a greater likelihood of engaging in poorer health-related behaviors. Based on these results, the authors offered several testable, theoretical propositions for future research to test the relationships between mid-life adult health statuses, functional health statuses, and health-related behaviors in other community-based samples.