Explaining Feminization in the U.S. Banking Industry, 1940–1980: Human Capital, Dual Labor Markets or Gender Queuing?

This case study of the banking industry, 1940–1980, examines three competing theories of increases in women's labor force participation. Combining census and industry regulatory data, three models of the feminization process are compared: human capital, dual labor market, and gender queuing. The gender queuing model best explains empirical variation in industry-level feminization. Clerical intensity (the proportion of clerical jobs to all jobs in the industry), especially, makes the substitution of female labor a cost-cutting alternative. Theories of feminization must incorporate spatial and temporal variation in the causal strength of relevant social forces. Gender queuing theory is best equipped to do this, as it allows for better historical interpretation of how varied social forces, both economic and patriarchal, impinge on class and gendered actors. Gender queuing theory subsumes determinants of feminization found in other theories while rejecting both their untenable assumptions and their interpretations of how labor markets actually function.