The Location of Change in the Sexual Structure of Occupations, 1950-1970: Insights from Labor Market Segmentation Theory

Empirical analyses of inequality trends indicates that gender differentials have remained highly stable in the United States since World War II. We challenge such conclusions of extreme stability with respect to the sexual structure of occupations. The primary focus is on shifts in gender composition, because different occupational distributions of men and women are now regarded as the major source of differential work rewards. We demonstrate that conventional measures of shifts in occupational sexual structure ignore the location and direction of change and that substantively important variations have occured since 1950. But our primary objective is to explain those changes. After indicating that other perspectives fail to account for observed patterns of sex composition change, we suggest complementarities between economists' labor market segmentation approaches and occupational sex segregation. Although our empirical representation of market segments is heuristic, results of analyses of U.S. census data from 1950 to 1970 are largely consistent with a dual labor market interpretation of changes in occupational sexual structure. We conclude with brief mention of substative and policy implications of these findings.