Occupational Desegregation in the 1970s: Integration and Economic Equity?

Abstract

During the 1970s, women made dramatic inroads into a select number of traditionally male occupations. Although media pundits touted women's gains as dramatic, there is reason to suspect whether these inroads actually represent progress for women. Using a queuing perspective, we examine whether women's gains represent genuine integration, ghettoization, or resegregation, and whether women gained economically from occupational feminization. Case studies of fourteen occupations that became feminized during the 1970s reveal that women's occupational and economic progress relative to men was disappointing. While women did make inroads into traditionally male occupations, they gained access to them because the occupations had lost much of their attractiveness to men and were becoming less advantageous for women as well. The desegregation of census occupational titles masked substantial internal segregation. In those occupations in which the wage gap did decline, it did so more because of declines in men's real earnings than because of increases in women's.