Occupational Attainment and Segregation by Sex

Author(s): Randall S. Brown, Marilyn Moon and Barbara S. Zoloth

Source: ILR Review , Jul., 1980, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Jul., 1980), pp. 506-517
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2522696

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
ILR Review

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.93 on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:01:21 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 OCCUPATIONAL ATTAINMENT AND
SEGREGATION BY SEX

RANDALL S. BROWN, MARILYN MOON, and BARBARA S. ZOLOTH*

The authors use multinomial logit and multiple discriminant analyses to

predict the probabilities that an individual will attain each of several oc-
cupational categories based on that individual's characteristics and
qualifications. By estimating the parameters of this model from a sample of
men and then applying them to a sample of women, the authors simulate the
occupational distribution that these women would have attained had they
been treated as if they were men. Even after making adjustments for taste
differences between men and women, the authors find that their hypothetical
results vary substantially from women's actual occupational distribution.
They conclude that a significant portion of occupational segregation by sex
can be attributed to discrimination.

THE two most important manifestations earnings across occupations.- We choose

of sex discrimination in the labor mar-
ket are wage differentials within occupa-
tions and differences in the occupational
distributions of men and women. To under-
stand fully the nature and impact of this
discrimination, we must understand both
underlying processes: that of wage deter-
mination and that of occupational attain-
ment. Many researchers have used wage
determination models to measure the extent
of sex discrimination, frequently including
instead to focus directly on the process of
occupational attainment.2 We develop a
model that uses microdata to predict the
probabilities that an individual will end up
in each of several occupational categories.
'This commonly takes the form either of including
occupational variables as regressors or of looking only
at intra-occupational wage differentials. See, for ex-
ample, Alan S. Blinder, "Wage Discrimination: Re-
duced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of
Human Resources, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Fall 1973), pp. 436-

some attempt to account for the variance in
*The authors are an economist at Mathematica
Policy Research in Princeton, assistant professor at the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and assistant
professor of agricultural economics at the University of
California-Davis, respectively. This study was sup-
ported by funds granted to the Institute for Research on
Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison by the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare pur-
suant to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. The
authors wish to thank Nancy Williamson for her pro-
gramming assistance.
55, and Michael J. Boskin, "Unions and Relative
Wages," American Economic Review, Vol. 62, No. 3
(June 1972), pp. 466-72. For an interesting way of
directly comparing earnings distributions both within
and between occupations, see Edward N. Wolff, "Oc-
cupational Earnings Behavior and the Inequality of
Earnings by Sex and Race in the United States," Re-
view of Income and Wealth, Series 22, No. 2 (June
1976), pp. 151 -66.
2We use the term "occupational attainment" to
mean only the net effect of all the forces and processes
that determine the occupation of a particular in-
dividual. This should not be confused with the socio-
logical use of the term nor with the sociological mod-
els of status attainment. Readers interested in a model

Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 33, No. 4 (July 1980). ? 1980 by Cornell University.
0019-7939/80/3304-0506$00.75

506

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.93 on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:01:21 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 OCCUPATIONAL ATTAINMENT & SEGREGATION BY SEX 507

By estimating the coefficients of this model allows us to simulate more accurately a

from a sample of men and then using these "nondiscriminatory" occupational distri-
estimates to simulate the occupational bution for women. As a result, we are better
distribution of a sample of women, we can able to measure the extent to which women
identify the impact of sex discrimination on are excluded from various occupations.
the occupational distribution of women. In
order to make the comparison less subject to A Model of Occupational Attainment
the criticism that women's "inferior" oc-
Heretofore, although some empirical
cupational distribution is attributable to a
work has been done on models of occupa-
lower career commitment, we apply our
tional choice, there has been little done on
procedures to a subsample of women whom
the subject of occupational attainment. Our
we identify as having a relatively strong
concern is in explaining the specific occu-
attachment to the labor force.
pation in which an individual is actually
Our primary interest is in comparing the
employed. Since the model is therefore in
actual occupational distribution of women
reduced form, reflecting both supply and
with the distribution that would prevail in
demand considerations, it should include
the absence of discrimination. Although
variables relevant to both sides of the mar-
other studies have asked similar questions,
ket. The individual seeking to maximize
very few have taken this particular ap-
his or her utility function chooses to work in
proach. Most of them have chosen instead
a certain occupation. Variables that may
to focus on the impact that occupational
affect this choice include socioeconomic
segregation and other forms of past dis-
background, marital-family status, aware-
crimination have on earnings differentials.'
ness of available alternatives, personal char-
One notable exception is the study by
acteristics, and individual tastes. Employ-
Schmidt and Strauss, which predicted in-
ers, on the other hand, hire individuals who
dividual probabilities of occupational at-
have qualifications fitting their job speci-
tainment. However, their model considered
fications. Such qualifications include edu-
far fewer occupational categories and used
cation, previous work experience, and voca-
less precise measures of education, experi-
tional training.
ence, and other personal characteristics than
From this underlying structure, it should
are available to US.4 Our approach thus
be theoretically possible to derive a condi-
tional probability function for the proba-
of an individual's occupational choice are referred to bility that an individual becomes employed
Michael J. Boskin, "A Conditional Logit Model of
in any one occupation. Thus, we have:
Occupational Choice," Journal of Political Economy,
Vol. 82, No. 2 (March 1974), pp. 389-98.
3For example, see Marianne A. Ferber and Helen M. (1) Pij|Xi = f(X,1. Xik)
Lowry, "The Sex Differential in Earnings: A Reap-
praisal," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. where Pij = the probability that indivi
29, No. 1 (October 1975), pp. 377 -87. They estimate ends up in occupation j; XIk = the value of
median occupational earnings using percent male in the kth personal characteristics for indi-
the occupation as an independent variable and find vidual i; and Xi = a K x 1 vector of personal
that differences in occupational distributions account characteristics for individual i for
for part of the male-female earnings gap. We have
elsewhere developed a model that allows the effects of i=l, ... N;
occupational distribution and wage discrimination to
be empirically disaggregated. See Randall S. Brown,
Marilyn Moon, and Barbara S. Zoloth, "Incorporat- k=l,... K.
ing Occupational Attainment in Studies of Male-
Female Earnings Differentials," Journal of Human
Resources, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter 1980), pp. 1 -28. that an individual will be in any one of five occupa-
4Peter Schmidt and Robert P. Strauss, "The Pre- tional categories ranging from professional to menial.
diction of Occupation Using Multiple Logit Mod- They then infer from the sign and significance of the
els," International Economic Review, Vol. 16, No. 2, race and sex dummies that race and sex discrimination
(June 1975), pp. 471 -85. They use education, po- do exist in access to occupations. Note that in order to
tential experience (age minus education minus 5), and isolate the effects of sex on occupational attainment we
dummies for race and sex to predict the probability restrict our analysis to whites only.

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.93 on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:01:21 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
508 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW
The personal characteristics, not all of
which would be exogenous to the indi-
vidual's occupational choice, are predeter-
mined for the purposes of predicting occu-
pational attainment.
We assume that, were it not for discrim-
ination and differences in tastes, the struc-
ture of occupational attainment would be
the same for men and women with compar-
able personal characteristics. Consequently,
the ability to predict occupations for men
accurately on the basis of their backgrounds
and qualifications allows us to construct a
hypothetical "discrimination-free" dis-
tribution of occupations for women, but
only if we assume that women's tastes for
different occupations are the same as men's.
If we include in this new simulation of oc-
cupations only those women whose tastes
about work are likely to be most similar to
men's, then we can begin to identify the
effects of discrimination on occupational
attainment. The portion of the occupa-
tional distribution that we attribute to dis-
crimination is a "residual," since it repre-
sents those differences in occupation be-
tween the original distribution and the dis-
tribution simulated for career-oriented
women that are not explained by their
socioeconomic characteristics. This ap-
proach is analogous to that used in studies
that attribute to discrimination the unex-
plained wage differential that remains after
accounting for productivity differences.5
50ur attempt to account for productivity qualifi-
cations and for tastes raises the question of how to
define discrimination. One could certainly argue that
sex differences in personal preferences for alternative
occupations reflect past discrimination. Women and
men are raised to view their roles in society differ-
entially; thus, existing differences in occupational
tastes reflect differential socialization. Some of the
differences in personal characteristics that are used to
justify male/female wage differentials and acquisi-
tion of different occupations would instead be at-
tributed by this argument to sex role stereotyping
and hence discrimination. If one chooses to define oc-
cupational discrimination in this broad manner, then
very few personal characteristics should be controlled
for in our model. At the other extreme, if one were
only interested in actual labor market discrimination,
then all relevant pre-occupational-attainment factors
should be included in the specification. In this study,
to the extent permitted by the data, we employ the
latter approach.
This content downloaded from
202.41.10.93 on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:01:21 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
The Methodology
We assume that the unknown functional
form for our conditional probability func-
tion can be adequately approximated by a
multinomial logistic model as follows:
(2) e_ _ _
= e -i--=-)
L e X f
h =1
where = a K x 1 vector of coefficients for
occupation j and the other variables are as
defined above. This specification yields a
separate coefficient vector for each possible
occupation. The multinomial logit tech-
nique, when applied to our problem, al-
lows us to predict the probability that an
individual with a particular set of personal
characteristics is in each possible occupa-
tion.6 The estimation requires the use of an
iterative maximum likelihood procedure.
To test the robustness of the logit model
and to accommodate a larger number of
occupational categories, we also use mul-
tiple discriminant analysis (DA). DA, while
closely related to logit, differs in the dis-
tributional assumptions.7 Discriminant
analysis uses differences in group means to
construct classification schemes that are
based on maximizing the within-group
relative to the between-group variances. It
requires the assumptions that, for individ-
uals in occupation i, the independent vari-
ables have a multivariate normal distribu-
tion and that the variance-covariance ma-
trix is constant across occupations.
Both techniques provide us with a set of
6A good explanation of the multinomial logit model
can be found in Marc Nerlove and S. James Press,
Univariate and Multivariate Log-Linear and Logistic
Models, Manuscript R-1306-EDA/NIH (Santa Mon-
ica, CA: Rand Corporation, December 1973). For
further details of this approach as applied here readers
are referred to Schmidt and Strauss, "The Prediction
of Occupation Using Multiple Logit Models," and to
Brown, Moon, and Zoloth, "Incorporating Occupa-
tional Attainment in Studies of Male-Female Earn-
ings Differentials."
7For a detailed comparison of logit and discrimi-
nant analyses, see Daniel McFadden, "A Comment on
Discriminant Analysis 'Versus' Logit Analysis,"
Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Vol. 5,
No. 4 (Fall 1976), pp. 511 -23.
 OCCUPATIONAL ATTAINMENT & SEGREGATION BY SEX 509
J predicted probabilities for any individual
with characteristics Xi. These probabilities
for individuals are then used to obtain a
predicted occupational distribution for the
sample. Two different classification tech-
niques are possible. One is to place each
individual in the occupation for which he
or she has the highest probability of mem-
bership. Although this is the technique
generally applied in discriminant analysis,
it unnecessarily restricts the amount of
information used from the results of both
the logit and DA methods. For example, the
probability that a particular individual is in
one occupation may be only slightly higher
than for one or more of the remaining occu-
pations, or it may clearly be higher than
that of all others. This information would
be lost if occupational assignment were
determined solely by the maximum prob-
ability. A more appealing technique (par-
ticularly when multiple groups are in-
volved) is to take the predicted probabilities
of belonging to a specific occupational
group and sum them over all observations.
This calculation yields the expected number
of sample members who would belong to
the specified occupation if the model were
an accurate description of reality. By using
the sum-of-probabilities technique, we
therefore obtain predictions of the number
of sample individuals who would be in each
occupation.
Data. The data for this study were taken
from the National Longitudinal Survey
(NLS). The NLS has the most compre-
hensive information on work history for a
large sample of adult workers, a fact that
allows us to calculate a better experience
variable for women than would other data
sets. Since women are more likely than men
to have extended periods out of the labor
force, it is important to calculate this vari-
able more directly for them, rather than
simply to use age minus years of schooling.
Our experience variable for women is thus
more reliable and allows us to overcome one
of the serious shortcomings of studies that
use other data sources. The NLS also allows
us to separate current from previous job
experience-another improvement in our
work history information. Finally, the study
contains attitudinal and family history
This content downloaded from
202.41.10.93 on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:01:21 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
information not commonly found in other
data sources.
After excluding those observations with
missing data and those individuals who
never participated in the labor force, we
have a sample of 2,277 white males aged 45
through 59 (based on 1966 NLS data). In
1967, the first survey year for women, the
sample of 1,968 women ranged in age from
30 to 44. In an effort to make the men and
women more comparable in age, we use 1971
data for the women, aging that sample by
four years.8 Because we use 1966 data for
men and 1971 data for women, we are im-
plicitly assuming that the structure of oc-
cupational attainment for men did not
change between 1966 and 1971. Although
older men may well have different occupa-
tions than younger ones, they also have
different attributes. The difference in ages
between men and women thus poses a prob-
lem only if the structure of determination
(established through the coefficients)
changes with age. Although some bias prob-
ably does arise from the age difference be-
tween the samples, it should understate
the effects of discrimination on the occupa-
tional assignment of women since age tends
to be positively related to occupational ad-
vancement.
Tastes. Because of the relatively compre-
hensive work histories for the women in our
sample, we are able to make some judgments
about their commitment to the labor force.
We assert that women with strong labor-
force attachment, either by choice or neces-
sity, are likely to be as career-oriented as
men. Consequently, we identify a sub-
sample of career-oriented women and simu-
late a new occupational distribution for
them alone, leaving the rest of the women
in their actual occupations.
Our segmented group of career-oriented
women includes all females who are heads
of households or who earn more than their
8An alternative to aging the sample of women would
have been to include age directly as an explanatory
variable. However, since age is more likely to affect
the entire structure of the equation than it is to affect
the probability of a person attaining a particular
occupation, we decided that making the ages of the
sample as close as possible was the preferable pro-
cedure.
 510 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW
spouses. In addition, we include women
who have both been active in the labor force
at some time during the last five years and
have spent one-half or more of their "po-
tential" working years in the labor force. We
define "potential" experience as age minus
years of all schooling minus six. The ratio
of actual to potential participation we use
to identify a woman as career-oriented rises
as a linear function of age to a maximum of
.7 for the oldest women because several
years absence from the labor force to have a
child will command a larger proportion of
potential experience for a young woman
than for an older woman. This segmented
group of women totals 829, or 41 percent of
the full sample, and, as one would expect, a
greater proportion of them are originally in
the higher status, male-dominated pro-
fessional, managerial, and craft occupa-
tions.
The empirical specification. For the
occupational simulations, we use the fol-
lowing independent variables constructed
from information on the NLS files for ma-
ture men and women:
KIDS = number of children;
OCFA TH = Duncan index of father's
occupation when individ-
ual was age 15;
YRSSCH = years of schooling;
VOCTRG = number of months of vo-
cational training;
RES15 = dummy variable for resi-
dence at age 15: urban = 1,
rural = 0;
IESUM = sum of 11 Rotter scale
variables pertaining to
the individual's sense of
internal and external con-
trol; and
PREVEX = labor market experience
prior to current job.
PREVEX, YRSSCH, and VOCTRG re-
flect different kinds of preparation for vari-
ous careers. Experience before current or last
job should be important for those occupa-
tions, such as foremen, that require experi-
ence in other jobs. Professional occupa-
tions, on the other hand, are likely to re-
quire substantial education but little previ-
This content downloaded from
202.41.10.93 on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:01:21 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
ous experience.' For the men, previous ex-
perience is defined as the age at which their
current job began minus YRSSCH minus
VOCTRG/12 minus 6. Since actual labor
history data are available for women on the
NLS, we can observe their levels of PRE VEX
directly. Number of children is included to
capture the pressure for a stable career often
attributed to those with family responsi-
bilities.10 Both OCFATH and RES15 at-
tempt to measure early influences on career
choice, with the former a proxy for socio-
economic background and the latter indicat-
ing exposure to available alternatives. The
Rotter scale variable is an indicator of the
individual's sense of control, providing a
qualitative scale ranging from 11 to 44: the
lower the score, the greater the degree of
internality or initiative."
Using both logit and discriminant analy-
ses, we first estimate occupational assign-
ment using the eight highly aggregated
categories listed in the Appendix. Since
much segregation exists within each of these
eight categories, the use of so few categories
of occupations obscures part of the occupa-
9We do not use total experience since tenure on cur-
rent job should not relate to current job attainment.
'0Although marital status is frequently used for this
purpose, there is good reason to believe this variable
would have a different effect on occupational grouping
for men than for women. Number of children is less
likely to do so, although access to some occupations
may be biased against women with children because of
competing demands on their time. The simulations
were run without the KIDS variable, and, although the
numbers changed, the conclusions remained essen-
tially the same. See Brown, Moon, and Zoloth, "In-
corporating Occupational Attainment in Studies of
Male-Female Earnings Differentials."
"1The Rotter scale variables are responses by in-
dividuals to questions on attitude and motivation.
Responses range from one through four, lower re-
sponses implying a greater sense of internal control,
which has been interpreted to mean a greater sense of
initiative. To some extent, of course, aspirations are
endogenous: women with better jobs may score higher
on the Rotter scale and hence be qualified for even
better jobs. This is similar to the impact of past dis-
crimination and socialization in that it will cause us to
understate the effects of discrimination on occupa-
tional attainment. For a thorough explanation of the
Rotter scale, see Paul J. Andrisani and Gilbert Nestel,
"Internal-External Control and Labor Market Ex-
perience," in U.S. Department of Labor, The Pre-
Retirement Years, Vol. 4 (Washington, D.C.: G.P.O.,
1975), pp. 197 - 235.
 OCCUPATIONAL ATTAINMENT & SEGREGATION BY SEX 511
tional differentiation between the sexes.
Consequently, we further subdivide these
eight aggregated groups into a total of 37
categories on the basis of the type of work
they involve.12 Our purpose is to analyze
occupational segregation better by both
identifying traditionally female occupa-
tions and grouping together occupations
with similar requirements regardless of sex
roles. Information from the Dictionary of
Occupational Titles was used to combine
several of the three-digit occupations with
similar skill levels and job qualifications
into each category. We use only the multiple
discriminant technique to analyze these 37
categories since such a large number of
categories is not tractable with logit analy-
sis.13
Results
The occupational distributions. The
actual sample distributions of women and
men across the eight major occupational
groups are shown in rows 1 and 4 of Table 1.
The second and third rows give the women's
simulated occupational distributions based
on redistributing only career-oriented
women (row 2) and based on redistributing
all women (row 3), using both multiple
discriminant analysis (a) and multinomial
logit analysis (b).14 Comparing the simu-
lated distributions between parts (a) and (b)
12Although it would have been preferable to use each
separate three-digit occupational category, we needed
to ensure an adequate number of observations of men
in each category in order to perform the estimations.
In "Occupational Earnings Behavior...", Wolff used
interval analysis to establish 32 categories of occupa-
tions with similar earnings. We did not use this type of
technique because we needed to consider several char-
acteristics at the same time.
13By imbedding occupational attainment models
within each of the eight broad occupational categories,
this limitation could be overcome. Since the results
from the logit and DA models are so similar for the
smaller number of categories, however, this has not
been pursued.
"4Length considerations preclude the reporting of
detailed coefficients. The complete logit estimation
results are presented in Brown, Moon, and Zoloth,
"Incorporating Occupational Attainment in Studies
of Male-Female Earnings Differentials."
This content downloaded from
202.41.10.93 on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:01:21 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
of rows (2) and (3) reveals very little differ-
ence in the results from multiple discrimi-
nant and multinomial logit analyses. This
is indicative of the similarity of the two
methods.
The only available measure of "success"
for the predicted occupational distributions
is how accurately the discriminant analysis
technique predicts for the men.15 Unfor-
tunately, this criterion is not helpful for
logit since the sum of the predicted prob-
abilities is constrained to equal the sample
frequency, thus guaranteeing an exact pre-
diction. The x 2 statistic, which tests the
hypothesis that all the coefficients (except
the constant terms) of the model are zero,
was computed and found to be significant
at the .005 level for each of the logit models
estimated. This result implies that the struc-
tural model specified does a much better
job of predicting occupation (in terms of
maximizing the likelihood function) than
does the use of sample proportions. Esti-
mated coefficients on education, vocational
training, and number of children were gen-
erally found to be highly significant. One
can see from the last two rows of Table 1
that the DA distribution for the men very
closely approximates the actual eight-
category occupational breakdown. Only for
crafts and laborers do the predicted pro-
portions differ substantially from the actual
distribution.
Of greatest interest are the differences
that appear between the actual and simu-
lated occupational distributions of women.
In general, the simulated occupational
distribution of women resembles the actual
distribution of men much more closely than
it does the women's actual distribution. In
particular, a much larger proportion of
women "become" managers and crafts
workers, while their representation in cleri-
cal, sales, and service occupations drops
dramatically. In fact, when the full sample
15Although the discriminant analysis program pro-
vides measures such as the percent of sample success-
fully classified, they are available only for the miaxi-
mum probability method. For details see Robeit A.
Eisenbeis and Robert B. Avery, Discrirninant Analysis
and Classification Procedures (Lexington: D.C. Heath
and Co., 1972).
512 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW

00 0~0
- ~ l or) c' or)C' al 00

00 CZ 00

C,)~~~~~~~~~/

O ~~00 00
-bt -7 00 00? - - ie t1 *

t ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~o a; o6 o
< C Q t- G00 Cl a) 0

Cq O C

.- .-

V) = .: N M m o. s X c c N UO<) O

00 00c t)
,:S.:C~
.- b-0 z 0s
0 Cb

cl D C 7 o6 o6 C7; C C
tu ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ -

k
~ ~ >Ct G
CZ~~~~~~~~~~~

-~~~~~~~7$T
0 0

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.93 on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:01:21 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 OCCUPATIONAL ATTAINMENT & SEGREGATION BY SEX 513
of women is reclassified, the new percentage
of women managers exceeds the actual pro-
portion of men in that category.
Recalling that the women are classified
by subjecting their own characteristics to
classification functions based on the struc-
ture of the men's occupational attainment
helps us explain these patterns. While some
of the "new" women managers come from
highly educated, professional and technical
categories, most of the increase results from
the assignment of high probabilities of be-
coming a manager to women who were
originally in the less prestigious clerical
and service categories. Thus, although these
women have the same characteristics as
male managers do in terms of training and
experience (especially the clerical workers),
they have not attained managerial rank.
Similarly, the large increase in female craft
workers appears to come from service occu-
pations, indicating that many of these
women have backgrounds similar to those of
men in crafts. In all cases the redistributions
resulting from reassigning all women ex-
hibits the same pattern as those based on
only the "career-oriented" group but are
much more extreme.
As shown in Table 2, the results for the
37-category distributions yield similar pat-
terns. Multiple discriminant analysis again
accurately predicts occupations for the men
(compare columns 4 and 5). Only categories
4, 20, 29, and 31 display substantial devia-
tion from the actual distribution. Moreover,
we are now able to trace more specifically
which occupations change for the women.
For example, the decline in women in the
professional category occurs almost ex-
clusively in groups 5 and 7, which include
teachers and nurses, respectively. Other
groups within the professional category
gain, rather than decrease, in size. For ex-
ample, the proportion of doctors and law-
yers rises from .1 to .4 percent and engineers
rise from .4 to 2.6 percent (categories 4 and
3, respectively).16 The movement into and
I6We also applied both the logit and DA techniques
to the subsample consisting of the eight categories of
professionals identified in the Appendix. There are
208 men and 242 women in these occupations, in-
cluding a total of 137 career-oriented women. The
This content downloaded from
202.41.10.93 on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:01:21 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
out of other occupations is also striking.
Within the sales category, women "leave"
the lower status sales jobs and "enter" the
higher status sales group. Women increase
in the crafts categories across the board,
while in some of the operative groups they
rise (drivers and heavy labor) and in others
they fall (graders, sorters, and wrappers,
and light labor).
Our occupational simulations for the
women are clearly hypothetical. We do not
deal with the general equilibrium issues of
what would happen to men (and women) if
the structure of occupational attainment
were to change for women. It seems un-
likely, for example, that one-fourth of all
men and women could be managers. More-
over, the assumptions that women not only
gain employment in specific occupations in
the same way as men but also have the same
a priori probability of being in each occupa-
tion as men "ensures" that some women will
leave the traditionally "female" occupa-
tions and enter those with greater propor-
tions of men. To test the effect of this last
assumption about probabilities, we re-
classified women by DA, this time basing
our a priori probabilities on the total oc-
cupational distribution of both men and
women. The results were quite similar to
those reported above. The women moved
out of the sales and clerical categories and
into the managerial group in similar mag-
nitudes. Moreover, the resulting proportion
of women in the managerial category again
substantially exceeded the actual propor-
tion of men. For the eight-category dis-
tributions, proportionately more men were
predicted to be operatives and sales workers
than in the original distribution for women;
yet the percentage of women in these occu-
pations increased only slightly with multi-
ple discriminant analysis and actually fell
by logit analysis. Similarly, for both the
37-category and the professional simula-
tions, the percentage of men in categories 5
(teachers) and 7 (nurses) exceeded the simu-
results are consistent with those of both the eight- and
37-category findings: the women leave categories 5
and 7 (teachers and nurses) and are reclassified to
categories 2, 3, and 6 (social workers, clergy, engi-
neers, and technicians). The results, which are similar
for both logit and DA, are available from the authors.
514 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW

Table 2. Actual and Predicted Distributions of Men and Women,

Using Multiple Discriminant Analysis on 37 Occupational Categories.
(in percentages)

Women Men

Predicted Predicted Predicted

Occupational Actual (intermediate)a (all women) (all men) Actual
Category (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

(1) Professional
1 0.8 .7 0.7 0.8 0.6
2 0.4 .7 0.8 1.0 0.8
3 0.4 1.7 2.6 2.8 3.3
4 0.1 .4 0.4 1.5 0.7
5 6.3 3.1 0.6 1.5 1.8
6 0.7 1.4 3.4 1.7 2.0
7 3.8 1.9 0.05 0.4 0.4
8 0.1 .2 0.3 0.4 0.5

(2) Managers
9 0.4 .6 0.7 1.1 1.3
10 0.1 .7 1.9 0.8 0.7
11 4.4 10.4 20.7 15.0 16.2
12 0.4 .7 0.9 1.2 1.2

(3) Clerical
13 2.8 1.7 0.1 0.4 0.4
14 10.0 7.5 2.3 1.8 1.4
15 17.9 10.6 1.9 0.6 0.7
16 0.2 1.1 3.8 0.8 0.6
17 10.3 7.6 2.1 2.8 2.6

(4) Sales
18 0.4 .7 1.5 1.6 1.5
19 7.3 6.2 2.2 3.4 3.8

(5) Crafts
20 0.1 1.9 4.1 5.4 7.1
21 0.1 1.2 2.6 3.9 4.9
22 0.0 .9 2.4 2.1 2.7
23 0.5 2.7 6.2 4.3 5.3
24 0.1 2.3 5.3 4.7 4.2
25 0.4 .4 0.6 0.7 0.9
26 0.2 1.0 1.8 3.1 3.4

(6) Operatives
27 4.4 3.5 1.5 2.8 1.7
28 0.7 2.6 6.6 5.3 5.6
29 0.1 1.6 4.5 5.9 1.9
30 5.2 4.4 4.6 3.9 4.2
31 6.5 7.1 8.5 5.5 7.2

(7) Service
32 6.3 4.7 0.7 3.4 2.5
33 0.0 .5 0.9 1.6 1.9
34 8.9 5.8 0.3 1.7 1.1

(8) Laborers
35 0.1 .2 0.2 1.1 0.5
36 0.0 .4 0.6 2.0 0.9
37 0.3 1.0 2.0 3.2 3.6

a The percentages include all women, butonly the "career-oriented" group has been redistributed according to DA
classification.

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.93 on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:01:21 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 OCCUPATIONAL ATTAINMENT 8& SEGREGATION BY SEX 515

Table 3. Segregation Indexes for Actual and Simulated Occupational Distributions,

Based on All NLS Men and Women.

Reassigning Reassigning Only

All Women "Labor-Force" Women

Sample Index a Index a

D S D S

For the 8 one-digit occupations

(2,277 men; 829 LF women; 1,169 other
women)
Actual distribution .5050 .3478 .5050 .3478
Discriminant analysis simulation .1500 .0311 .2955 .1398
Logit simulation .1507 .0338 .2965 .1378

For the 37 occupational categories

(2,050 6men; 807 LF women; 1,141 other
women)
Actual distribution .6261 .3457 .6261 .3457
Discriminant analysis simulation .2094 .0316 .3617 .1810

a The indexes are defined as follows:

D = Dissimilarity index = - -M| where Wi and M are the number of women and men res
2 W M
in the th occupation.
T~ (p -p)2
S = Segregation index where P is the proportion of women and Ti is the total number
of people in the ith occupation.

lated percentage of women. Women also
exceeded men in percentage terms in two of
the four managerial subcategories and three
of the seven craft categories after reclassi-
fication. In short, it is clear that labor market
discrimination contributes to a significant
waste of human resources with women
being relegated too frequently to jobs for
which they would be considered over-
qualified if they were men.
Segregation indexes. To compare the ef-
fects of our redistributions on occupational
segregation, we calculated two different
segregation indexes for each of the occupa-
tional distributions (see Table 3). Both
measure the degree of segregation and both
range from 0 to 1. A zero value indicates
equal proportions of men and women in
each occupation, while a value of one re-
flects total segregation of the sexes. The
dissimilarity index (D) represents the pro-
portion of either men or women who would
have to be transferred from one occupation
to another in order to obtain equal propor-
tions across all occupations. The segrega-
tion index (S) is a measure of association
between a person's occupation and sex, with
a higher degree of association indicating
more segregation by sex across occupa-
tions.'7
The calculated index values reveal sub-
stantial differences in distributional pat-
terns. For example, the actual value of D of
.505 in the eight-category case implies that
more than half of either the men or the wo-
men would need to be transferred between
occupations in order for their proportions
to be exactly equal. However, our first simu-
lation, based on reassigning all women,
produces a value of .150. This large drop
reflects the strong combined effects of dis-
"7These indexes are more fully described and com-
pared in Barbara S. Zoloth, "Alternative Measures
of School Segregation," Land Economics, Vol. 52,
No. 3 (August 1976), pp. 278-98.

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.93 on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:01:21 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 516 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW
crimination in the labor market and of dif-
ferences in tastes."8 However, even when we
adjust for taste differences by reassigning
only the "career-oriented" women, the re-
sulting index value of .296 is still substan-
tially below the actual value of .505. Identi-
cal conclusions are reached in both the
eight-category and the 37-category cases as
well as for both indexes."9 It is clear, in short,
that occupational segregation between
men and women would, in each case, be
substantially reduced by assigning women
to occupations according to the men's
model of occupational attainment.
Future Directions
The methodology outlined in this paper
can be used to differentiate between "justi-
fied" (explained) and "unjustified" (unex-
plained) differences in occupational dis-
tribution in much the same way that wage
differentials are often separated into those
two categories. We do need to be concerned
that the variables used to classify occupa-
tions capture those personal characteristics
that are relevant to career attainment. More-
over, taste for occupation, including the
working conditions associated with the
occupation, is likely to be particularly im-
portant. Nevertheless, our results suggest
that personal characteristics and tastes ex-
plain only part of the differences in the
distribution of occupations between men
and women and that a substantial portion
of the segregation in occupations can be
attributed to discrimination. As we argued
above, analyses of wage differentials be-
tween men and women, particularly those
that attempt to measure the effects of sex
discrimination, need to deal explicitly with
occupational segregation as well as with un-
equal pay for equal work. Furthermore, the
'8Since the difference is a residual it may also con-
tain justifiable differences to the extent that we have
(4) Sales
omitted or incorrectly specified personal character-
18. Real estate and insurance agents or brokers,
istics that affect occupational attainment.
'9Note also that the similarity of the index values for 19. Auctioneers, demonstrators, peddlers, news-
the discriminant analysis and logit simulations in
Table 3 further supports the claims made above that
these two procedures appear to perform equally well
in predicting distributions across the eight one-digit
occupations.
This content downloaded from
202.41.10.93 on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:01:21 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
large differences between our actual and
simulated distributions suggest that ap-
propriate antidiscrimination policies could
be extremely fruitful in equalizing occupa-
tional opportunities between men and
women. Repeating this type of analysis
periodically, coupled with the calculation
of segregation indexes, could provide a use-
ful way of tracking the progress of these
policies. Finally the ability to predict occu-
pations for men and to simulate a new dis-
tribution for women brings us closer to a
comprehensive analysis of labor market
discrimination.
Appendix
Representative 3-Digit Occupations Included in
Each of the 37 Occupational Groupings
(1) Professional and technical
1. Authors, editors, librarians, personnel workers,
public relations workers
2. Clergy, recreation and group workers, social
and welfare workers
3. Architects, engineers, draftsmen, designers
4. Lawyers, judges, physicians
5. Teachers, actors, artists, musicians, dieticians
6. Technicians (except medical and dental)
7. Physical and natural scientists, health practi-
tioners and technicians
8. College professors, social scientists
(2) Managerial
9. Buyers, purchasing agents, store department
heads
10. Floor managers, credit managers, inspectors,
conductors, ship officers
11. Building managers and superintendents, man-
agers nec.'
12. Officials and administrators (public admin.)
(3) Clerical
13. Agents, cashiers
14. Attendants, clerks, office machine operators,
receptionists, typists
15. Tellers, secretaries, bookkeepers, stenog-
raphers
16. Messengers
17. Clerical workers nec.
advertising agents
boys, sales nec.
Inec. = not elsewhere classified.
 OCCUPATIONAL ATTAINMENT 8c SEGREGATION BY SEX 517

(5) Crafts 30. Light labor (examiners and checkers, textile

20. Mechanics and repair operatives)
21. Cabinetmakers, carpenters, electricians, 31. Operatives nec.
plumbers
22. Other construction workers
(7) Service
23. Foremen, inspectors
24. Big machine and heavy metal workers 32. Cleaning and laundry services (housekeepers,
janitorial services)
25. Higher level crafts (engravers, jewelers, op-
33. Protective service (police, fire, guards)
ticians, upholsterers)
34. Personal service (barbers, bartenders, cooks,
26. Lower level crafts (bookbinders, typesetters,
practical nurses)
furriers, millers)

(6) Operatives (8) Laborers

27. Apprentices, attendants, graders and sorters 35. Heavy laborers (longshoremen, lumbermen,
and wrappers teamsters)
28. Drivers (bus, truck, taxicab), other motormen 36. Other laborers (fishing, garage laborers, gar-
29. Heavy labor (blasters, smelters, mine opera- deners)
tives, brakemen) 37. Laborers nec.

This content downloaded from

202.41.10.93 on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:01:21 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms