Immigration, Gender and the Process of Occupational Change in the United States, 1970–80

Abstract

This paper documents the changes in the occupational allocation of native and foreign-born women between 1970 and 1980 and decomposes the observed changes into an industry shift, and intra-industry occupational recomposition shift, and an interaction of these two main effects. Our finding that the allocation of immigrant women into two blue-collar occupations (laborers and farm laborers) and immigrant men into four blue-collar occupations (operatives, service workers, laborers and farm laborers) increased at a faster rate than the growth of the immigrant workforce indicates the advancement of a process of occupational succession whereby immigrants are channeled into jobs vacated by domestic workers. This interpretation is particularly suggested for the expansion of immigrant workers in the operative (men only) and farm laborer (both men and women) occupations because employment has declined continuously in these job categories since World War II.