Occupational Sex-Segregation: Causes and Changes

本研究的目的是调查职业性别隔离的决定因素。 尽管人们早已确定男女工作分配差异很大，但对于其原因却存在广泛分歧。 对职业隔离的解释包括性别歧视、针对特定工作类型的基于性别的不同比较优势以及男性和女性不同的工作偏好。 这项研究很重要，因为它将为劳动力市场的运作提供有用的见解，而此时对于政府干预的必要性和适当性存在相当大的争论，以便使男性和女性在不同职业中的分布更加均匀。 为了帮助区分可能解释职业隔离的相互竞争的假设，将收集一个数据集，其中包含来自各种来源的职业特征，包括职业名称词典、就业质量调查、1970 年和 1980 年人口普查以及当前人口调查。 这些特征将用于调查主要由女性担任的工作与通常由男性担任的工作有何不同。 此外，为什么只有一些在 1970 年由一种性别占主导地位的职业出现了实质性的男女性别划分的趋势，这一问题也将得到调查。

This purpose of this research is to investigate the determinants of sex segregation by occupation. Although it has long been established that the distribution of jobs held by men and women varies greatly, there has been wide disagreement over the causes. Explanations for occupational segregation include sex discrimination, different comparative advantages based on gender for particular types of work, and different job preferences of men and women. This study is important because it will provide useful insights into the functioning of the labor market, at a time when there is considerable debate about the need for and the appropriateness of government intervention, in order to produce a more uniform distribution of men and women across occupations. To help distinguish among the competing hypotheses that might explain occupational segregation, a data set will be assembled containing occupational characteristics from various sources including the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, the Quality of Employment Surveys, the 1970 and 1980 censuses, and the Current Population Surveys. These characteristics will be used to investigate how jobs held predominantly by women differ from those typically held by men. In addition, the question of why only some occupations that were dominated by one sex in 1970 have shown substantial movement toward a more even division between men and women will be investigated.