Sex and Ethnic Segregation in the 1980 Swedish Labour Market

Abstract

This article addresses the issues of sex and ethnic segregation in the Swedish labour market, comparing native and all foreign-born women and men aged sixteen to sixty-four, with more detailed results for Finnish, Yugoslavian and Turkish immigrants. Occupational segregation in the 1980 Swedish census is measured by using a simple concentration index (Gibbs and Martin, 1962), sex and ethnic segregation in occupational distribution by Duncan and Duncan's (1955) index of dissimilarity. Overall, women are more concentrated to a few occupations compared to men. Occupational concentration is greater for immigrant than for native men. With the notable exception of Turkish women, who work in the smallest number of occupations, differences in concentration are much smaller between immigrant and Swedish women than between men. The most common occupation for immigrant women is charwork (domestic servants are non-existent in Sweden), while secretarial work is the top-most occupation for Swedish women. Manufacturing jobs dominate among men with two exceptions: Turkish men work to a great extent in service occupations and Yugoslavian women in manufacturing. The presence of foreign workers reduces sex segregation in the Swedish labour market, although this applies to the lowest levels of job-qualification only. The fact that Yugoslav and Turkish immigrants are the least sex-segregated is no indication of increasing gender equality, but reflects their relatively weak position in the Swedish labour market in general.