The Dual Economy and Sex Differences in Earnings

Abstract

This paper evaluates dual economy theory and research on the problem of sex differences in earnings. General Social Survey data are used to demonstrate that (1) the four most commonly used measures of the dual economy (Beck, Horan & Tolbert 1978; Bibb & Form 1977; Hodson 1977; Tolbert, Horan & Beck 1980) are extremely inconsistent when allocating women and men to industrial sectors, (2) the inconsistency results in markedly different empirical estimates of the role of the dual economy in generating sex differences in earnings, and (3) the dual economy measures provide only modest support-if any at all-for hypotheses derived from dual economy theory. In the closing section I consider the use of multiple, continuous measures of industrial structure in dual economy research. Emerging in the late 1960s, the dual economy perspective was integrated into a number of research papers concerned with sex differences in earnings (Beck, Horan & Tolbert 1978, 1980; Bibb & Form 1977; Coverman 1983; Fligstein, Hicks & Morgan 1983; Hauser 1980; Hodson 1977; Hodson & England 1986; Lord & Falk 1980; Maume 1985; Parcel & Mueller 1983; Roos 1981; Tolbert, Horan & Beck 1980; Ward & Mueller 1985). Recently, a wave of critiques of dual economy theory (Baron & Bielby 1980; Hodson 1984; Hodson & Kaufman 1982) and measures (Apostle, Clairmont & Osberg 1985; Kaufman, Hodson & Fligstein 1981; Wallace & Kalleberg 1981; Zucker & Rosenstein 1983) have prompted some to argue that we need to move the dual economy perspective in our efforts to account for sex differences in earnings. In order to constructively move beyond the dual economy perspective, however, we need to take stock of what the perspective has contributed to our understanding of sex differences in