The Occupational and Marital Mobility of Women

The NORC data on occupational mobility of women presented by DeJong, et al. (Dec., 1971) are reanalyzed to the end of comparing male and female patterns of occupational mobility in the U. S. Both male and female occupational mobility patterns are then compared to patterns of marital mobility (from father's occupation to husband's) of wives not in the civilian labor force. For the comparisons, all three matrices are adjusted to identical marginal distributions to eliminate the extent to which size of occupational categories of either origin or destination differ. The occupational mobility of women is found to be less similar to mobility patterns of men than is women's marital mobility. Thus,, similar patterns govern movement of both men and women from their origins to the status of male head of their families. The occupational mobility of the women themselves, however, does not follow the patterns of men so closely as DeJong, et al. concluded in their original article.