Robert M. Blackburn

Explaining gender segregation

Occupational gender segregation--the tendency for women and men to work in different occupations--is an important feature of all societies, and particularly the wealthy industrialized ones. To understand this segregation, and to explain its significance, we need to distinguish between vertical segregation entailing inequality and horizontal segregation representing difference without inequality, with overall segregation being the resultant of these components. Three major theoretical approaches to understanding occupational gender segregation are examined: human capital/rational choice, patriarchy, and preference theories. All are found to be inadequate; they tend to confuse overall segregation with its vertical component, and each entails a number of other faults. It is generally assumed or implied that greater empowerment of women would reduce gender segregation. This is the reverse of what actually happens; in countries where the degree of womens empowerment is greater, the level of gender segregation is also greater. An alternative theoretical approach based on processes of social reproduction is shown to be more useful.

The Analysis of Occupational Gender Segregation Over Time and Place: Considerations of Measurement and Some New Evidence

Despite the importance of occupational segregation as an area of investigation concerned with understanding womens employment status, pay levels, and promotional prospects during the last 20 years, there has been relatively little attention paid to the problems of trying to measure segregation levels in quantitative data. This paper argues that there are serious measurement problems which it illustrates by showing that two of the principal indices, the widely-used Index of Dissimilarity and the OECDs WE Index are highly flawed and produce unreliable results. It demonstrates the importance of these deficiencies using cross-national data from 9 countries for the period 1970-1982. The paper introduces a new way of analysing the form of these indices in the Basic Segregation Table, which is a 2 x 2 table of gendered occupations by sex. The paper suggests a new approach to measuring occupational segregation which provides more consistent and valid results. This is called Marginal Matching. The paper ends with an analysis of occupational gender segregation in England and Wales from 1951 to 1981. It concludes that, in contrast to research claims to date, the trend in segregation over this period is one of overall stability.

Gendered Occupations Exploring the Relationship between Gender Segregation and Inequality

While the existence of occupational gender segregation is well known, it has been usual to see it as a reflection of women’s disadvantage. However, cross-national data show that the greater the segregation, the less tends to be women’s disadvantage. The solution to this puzzle entails the introduction of the two orthogonal dimensions of segregation, where only the vertical dimension measures inequality while the horizontal dimension measures difference without inequality. Furthermore, the two dimensions tend to be inversely related, with a tendency for the horizontal component to be larger and so have more effect on the resultant overall segregation; hence the inverse relation between overall segregation and inequality. The usual explanations of segregation, being focused on inequality, are inadequate. To understand the situation it is necessary to take account of the many related factors in social change, and to recognize that horizontal segregation reduces opportunities for gender discrimination within occupations. An exploratory test of the argument is conducted for the US, Canada and Britain. With pay as the vertical dimension the results are essentially as predicted. With CAMSIS, a measure of occupational advantage, a slight advantage lies with women. The test is less clear but consistent with the argument.

Changing Inequalities in Access to British Universities

The last 50 years have seen fundamental changes in education throughout tbe world, including the UK. While these changes have affected education at all levels, they have been most dramatic in higher education. There has been massive expansion of provision which has transformed its character and social significance. In this paper we consider the patterns of class and gender inequalities in UK higher education over the period 1938-1990. We focus on what may be regarded as the top segment of higher education, full-time university degree courses [1], while drawing out relevant differences from the other colleges and part-time courses. We argue that there has been a decline in gender inequalities over the period. Class inequalities, on the other hand, have not changed substantially. The paper also probes the meaning of an expansion in the numbers in higher education, and develops an argument which challenges conventional understandings of the relationship between education and the labour market. More fundamentally, the paper addresses the question of how social changes come about, and how they are to be understood. The role of government policy is particularly salient in this respect, but only in relation to wider social processes.

The Measurement of Occupational Gender Segregation: Current Problems and a New Approach

SUMMARY This paper demonstrates the weaknesses of the two principal measures used in British occupational segregation research-the index of dissimilarity and the sex ratio index. It takes a fresh look at the conceptual and statistical issues involved and proposes a solution through a new approach using marginal matching. Contrary to the findings of previous researchers, the analysis of British census data reveals that there has been little change in segregation levels between 1951 and 1981 in England and Wales.

The Vertical Dimension of Occupational Segregation

This article presents a new approach to measuring the most important dimension of gender segregation - the vertical dimension-in quantitative survey data. This, in turn, allows for a reassessment of the view that high levels of gender segregation are synonymous with high levels of social inequality. In order to do this, the article also draws upon significant conceptual developments. `Segregation as it is commonly understood is named as `overall segregation, and is the resultant of two components, `horizontal and `vertical segregation, representing difference and inequality separately. This provides a clear approach to measurement. The argument is developed with a case study of the British labour force. The pattern of segregation, in terms of its overall level and its components, varies considerably across sections of the labour force. In terms of inequality, the vertical components measured indicate that British women working full-time are more advantaged than we would expect, and that women working in part-time manual occupations, though facing the greatest relative disadvantage in terms of pay, are actually slightly advantaged over men working in manual occupations in terms of social stratification. Although overall segregation has remained relatively unchanged over the five year period from 1991 to 1996, there have been some significant changes to its components within the various sections of the employed British labour force in that time. By looking at the various sections of the labour force, relative to the labour force as a whole, we can achieve a better understanding of how segregation operates with respect to gender inequalities.

Education and Social Class: Revisiting the 1944 Education Act with Fixed Marginals

Trends in class inequality in attendance at selective schools are hard to interpret, since the number of places at these schools and the distribution of children by class also change over time. Reanalysing data from the Nuffield Mobility Study, it is shown that interpretation of the trends depends on which measure of association is used. By viewing stratification as a continuous hierarchy which is then sliced up into « classes » of differing sizes, some interpretative problems can be overcome; greatest clarity is achieved by defining a top class equal in size to the number of selective school places. Reanalysing the data using this « fixed marginals » approach, a clear pattern emerges : growing inequality before 1944, movement towards equality in the first decade after, but sharply increased inequality thereafter. An explanation is proposed to explain this pattern

The Dimensions of Occupational Gender Segregation in Industrial Countries

It is well known that women and men tend to work in different occupations, and generally held that this disadvantages women. In order to understand how far this occupational segregation entails gender inequality it is necessary to examine the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the segregation. The horizontal dimension measures difference without inequality while the vertical dimension measures the extent of the occupational inequality. Two measures of vertical inequality are used: pay and social stratification (CAMSIS). Measurements over a number of industrially developed countries show the expected male advantage with regard to pay. However, contrary to popular beliefs, women are consistently advantaged in terms of stratification. Also, it is found that the position of women is more favourable where the overall segregation is higher – the lower the male advantage on pay and the greater the female advantage on stratification.

Gender inequality in the labour market. Occupational concentration and segregation

This user-friendly manual, which can be used for self-learning or as a teaching tool, guides readers through all stages in producing data on occupational concentration and segregation. It clarifies concepts and measures, discusses quality and availability of information, and reviews various methodological tools, using well-known statistical software packages.

The Reproduction of Social Inequality

Ideological assumptions of equality and economic individualism have permeated the traditional analysis of social mobility. This is shown most clearly in the use of perfect mobility as the theoretical model that underlies most of the empirical analyses. A major consequence is that these analyses have offered a poor conceptualisation of the nature of the structure within which movement occurs, and have tended to ignore the question of relative distances between the objects, typically conceived as social classes, making up that structure. A further consequence is that they have concentrated on the issue of how much mobility, rather than on why it does, or does not, occur. It is argued that a more adequate conceptualisation would involve a move away from rigidly defined class categories towards a recognition of the hierarchical structure of occupational groups.