Spatial Dimensions of the Gender Division of Labor in a Local Labor Market

It is widely known that women work in different occupations and industries from men. With data from the Worcester, Massachusetts metropolitan area, we examine the extent to which employment opportunities are also spatially segmented along gender lines. After reviewing the reasons for previous scholarly neglect of the question of the location of employment opportunities by gender at a fine spatial scale, we present several reasons for expecting such patterns to exist. Our analysis of special runs from the 1980 Census Journey-to-Work File for Worcester reveals striking differences in the locations of women'svs. men's employment at the censustract level. Moreover, within each industrial sector, e.g., manufacturing or consumer industries, women work in different parts of the metropolitan area from men. We begin to explore the processes that might generate such patterns by examining the distances traveled by women vs. men to work in census tracts where the employment is held predominantly by workers of one sex. The findings show that men generally travel longer distances to work than do women working in the same tract regardless of the sex composition of the tracr's labor force. Moreover, women's travel distances to workplaces in the suburbs vary according to whether employment in the tract is held primarily by men or by women; women travel shorter distances to work in suburban tracts with female-dominated employment than they do to work in suburban tracts with male-dominated employment. The analysis suggests that suburban women in particular face spatially constrained local labor markets. We conclude with some thoughts on the implications of the patterns we have documented.