Sex-Differentiated Patterns of Intergenerational Occupational Mobility

Previous research on men's and women's intergenerational occupational mobility patterns has focused on only one pattern of possible sex differences: differences by sex in the influences of father's occupational characteristics. Thus general conclusions of few differences by sex in patterns of intergenerational occupational mobility are premature. In this study, five possible sex-differentiated patterns of intergenerational mobility are proposed and evaluated. The five patterns alternately suggest that the four intergenerational relationships between the occupations of sons and daughters and their fathers and mothers (i) differ by sex of the parent, (ii) differ by sex of the offspring, (iii) differ by the match or contrast between the sexes of the parents and offspring, (iv) are all different, or (v) are all the same. Results of an analysis based on data from the Canadian National Mobility Study indicate that, although the relationships between occupational origins and destinations are, to a large degree, equivalent, there are consistent (and readily interpretable) sexdifferentiated linkages between the occupations of parents and their offspring.